


One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson

by DyrneKeeper



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyrneKeeper/pseuds/DyrneKeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt loves New York. (Seriously – he’s thinking of having shirts printed.) But he quickly learns the hard way that the City that Never Sleeps isn’t a dream come true for everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author:** Dyrne_Keeper  
 **Title:** One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson  
 **Other Pairing(s)/Character(s):** Kurt/OMC, Rachel/Finn (brief mention), Quinn.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Summary:** Kurt loves New York. (Seriously – he’s thinking of having shirts printed.) But he quickly learns the hard way that the City that Never Sleeps isn’t a dream come true for everyone.  
 **Warnings (if any):** None.  
 **Total word count:** 30,500  
 **Original prompt number:** #59  
 **Disclaimer:** This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by Ryan Murphy and FOX Broadcasting Company. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
 **Author's notes (if any):** Oh, constraints, so bad and yet so good for my creativity. I set myself this challenge within the given prompt: One hundred scenes, no less, each no more than five hundred words long. I had a ridiculous amount of fun with this, and things happened with this format that never would have happened otherwise, so thank you to the prompter for giving me such a great assignment to tackle :)  
 **Beta(s):** mtonbury

So, I wrote this ages ago (it sure _feels_ like ages ago now) for the Klaine Endgame challenge this past summer, and am finally getting around to crossposting here. Consider it the beginning of my re-foraying into ficwriting :)

*

**One of Them**

1.  
“It’s so _tall_.”

“Blaine, baby, can you give me a hand with this?”

“I think that’s the Empire State building. Is that the Empire State building?”

“Blaine!”

Blaine jumps, and Kurt has to laugh at the look of awe and excitement and, clearly, utter lack of concern for such mundane details as loading their luggage into the back of Alex’s car. “Sorry,” he says, still grinning, and kisses Kurt’s cheek before he slings his backpack into the backseat and bends down to pick up a duffel bag.

Alex fails spectacularly at hiding her amusement from the other side of the car, and Kurt is sure she’s not even trying. “You have been to New York before, right?” she asks, shoving a suitcase aside in the trunk to make room for another.

“Yes!” Blaine says, settling the duffel into the slot Alex just opened up and slamming the trunk closed. “...Once.”

Kurt and Alex catch each other’s eyes over the roof of the car, and Kurt can’t help laughing.

Blaine leans into Kurt’s side as Alex fights gridlock traffic, windows rolled down and bass cranked up, because things aren’t chaotic enough as they are.

“That wasn’t the Empire State Building, was it.”

Kurt grins. “Not even close.” As ridiculous as Blaine is being, Kurt can’t pretend he doesn’t understand. His first three months here had been one long string of breathtaken moments and constant wonderment that he had finally gotten out of Ohio and that he was _here_.

“That is though, right?” Blaine points out the window at an iconic silhouette framed against blue sky and summer-white clouds.

“Mhmm.” Kurt leans his hand on Blaine’s shoulder, so he can look out his window and revel in seeing the city through his eyes, so bright and gleaming and full of promise.

Blaine’s fingers tighten around Kurt’s, and his eyes are bright and happy. “This is going to be so amazing.”

2.  
Kurt sets down the thermos of hot chocolate and stretches out on the blanket next to Blaine, crooking an arm behind his head and staring up at the sky. Blaine unlaces his hands and reaches for one of Kurt’s. “You can’t see many stars here, can you.”

Kurt tips his head over to look at Blaine, who’s staring up at the sky with wide dark eyes. “This is _New York_. The stars are all down there.” He raises a hand to point down over the lip of the rooftop. Blaine follows the line of his arm and laughs.

“Don’t you ever miss it? The quiet at night? The big prairie sky?”

“What Ohio were you living in? The closest thing we had to open grassland was the flea market parking lot.”

“Still.” Blaine rolls over on his side and props his chin on his hand. “It doesn’t overwhelm you?”

Kurt shakes his head, lets his eyes roam over the skyline, buildings and streets like constellations. “Home always seems so empty when we go there. Empty and blank. New York is crowded and smoggy and ugly but it’s alive, you know? Underneath and about and all around you, all the time, are people, working and creating and _living_...without that it just feels like suffocating. I’ll trade a few bright shiny things in the sky for being able to breathe.”

When he turns his head Blaine is just looking at him, his eyes so soft and wondering. He reaches an arm over Kurt and leans down to kiss him gently. “You’re the only star I need.”

The night air is soft and cool, and for a long time they forget the stars above and the stars below.

3.  
“You’re _sure_ Sean’s in class til five?”

Blaine looks up from where he’s carefully unlacing one of Kurt’s boots. “You’re making me paranoid, Kurt.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Blaine tugs off the boot and sets it next to its twin beside the door, and then crawls up onto the bed and hovers on his hands over Kurt, looking down the length of his body. “‘Stotally worth it.”

“Worth what?” Kurt frowns as he slides his hands up Blaine’s already-bare back.

“Getting caught. Fuck, Kurt.” Blaine dips his head to kiss him. “You are so hot.”

“Look who’s talking,” Kurt grins, and wriggles when Blaine pinches his hip lightly. “Pants off. Now.”

It’s always a revelation, seeing Blaine naked, discovering the things they can do together, and familiarity hasn’t yet bred contempt; Kurt is entirely sure he could happily spend days in bed with Blaine and never get tired of it, though he’s perfectly willing to try just to see. And now they have _time_ , time together, for the first time, in the same place without parents or curfews, and Kurt plans on taking advantage of every moment of it that he can.

4.  
“Hey, baby!” Blaine answers the door with a smile, but over his shoulder Kurt can see Sean glance up from his computer with an scowl. Blaine steps back to let Kurt in. “How was class?”

“It was amazing,” Kurt sets down his bag on Blaine’s desk and sits on his bed. “Hello, Sean. How’s it going?” he asks, and makes himself be polite.

“Fine.” Sean closes his laptop and snags his coat off the back of his chair. “I’m gonna head over to the library.”

“We won’t be here long,” Blaine frowns. “Sorry if we’re bothering you -”

“No, it’s fine.” Sean shrugs his coat on and shuts the door with force that’s just short of a slam.

Kurt waits until he’s sure Sean is out of earshot down the hall. “He hasn’t gotten any better yet?”

Blaine frowns and scrubs a hand through his curls. “No,” he sighs. “And it’s not just me, or _us_ , you know? Meghan’s in his Spanish class and says he’s like this there, too.”

“Maybe he just needs time to adjust. It’s hard being away from home. Well, for _some_ people,” he says, when Blaine raises an eyebrow. “You’ll bring him around.”

Blaine flops down on the bed across from him and props his chin on his hand. “You really think so?”

“Of course. Maybe he has some dark past or some deep hidden secret you can coax out of him with a latte and your kind-wise-mentor-face,” he says, oh so seriously, and Blaine laughs and rolls onto his back to swat at him.

“You’re _awful._

“You love me. And tell me you haven’t already tried.”

Kurt laughs, too, at the look on Blaine’s face, and it’s so sweet, to know him so well. “I _knew_ it.” He strokes a hand across Blaine’s shoulder. “Just give it some time. Roommates are great - James and I always had a fantastic time together. And still do.” He lets his thumb drag under Blaine’s collar and tugs it back a little. “How long do you think he’s going to be in the library for, anyway?”

Blaine grabs his hand and kisses his palm, and a warm fluttery weight settles into Kurt’s stomach. “Long enough,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss.

5.  
Kurt breathes deep as he pushes his way out of the dining hall and onto the streets. It’s crisp and cool, a perfect September morning, and he loves days like this, loves the brightness of the city, the early (not _so_ early) bustle, _loves_ his classes. Every time they have a guest lecturer, or his instructors wrangle his classes onstage to put into practice what they’re learning, he feels like this isn’t just another dream, that it’s _real_ , that he’s making the life he’d always wanted come true for himself, a little bit more every day.

Blaine is waiting outside his building when his class is over. He’s dressed for a run, and flushed, his hair poking in corkscrews from under his hat.

“How was it? Thanks,” he says, as Kurt digs his water bottle out of his bag and hands it over. Kurt sighs happily.

“It was _amazing._ I just can’t believe I get to be here, and see all these amazing people and learn from them and ask them questions...”

Blaine bumps his shoulder as they hit the sidewalk and start walking back to the dorms. “Someday you’re going to be one of them, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday,” Blaine says, recapping the water bottle and flipping up the flap on Kurt’s bag to tuck it back inside. “You are going to be the great Kurt Hummel and have won more Tonys than you know what to do with, and you’re going to change the lives of hundreds of kids who see your musical, that you wrote _and_ starred in, and students at performing arts schools across the country are going to count down the days until you come speak to their classes.”

“Just hundreds?” Kurt takes Blaine’s hand; it’s cold, from the brisk fall air, and damp from dripped water. He squeezes it to get the blood flowing again, and Blaine squeezes back.

“Thousands. _Millions._ And I am going to be right there with you and be _so_ proud of you, Kurt Hummel.”

They’re stopped at a crosswalk, thankfully, because Kurt _has_ to stop at that, needs to turn and wrap his arms around Blaine’s neck and hold him so so tightly. Blaine hugs him, hard, and kisses the side of his neck. “So proud of you.”

The light changes; the signal chirps. Kurt squeezes Blaine one last time, then lets go, and takes his hand again. “Thank you.” He has to blink rapidly, and laughs at himself. “I love you, you know.”

“And I love you. But now, lunch!” Blaine breaks into a jog and pulls Kurt after himself, laughing and sniffling and entirely, entirely happy.

6.  
Kurt wakes up slowly, to the slow brush of fingertips through his hair and against his forehead. He blinks his eyes open to see Blaine already awake, head pillowed on his own arm, gently running his fingers across Kurt’s scalp.

“Good morning,” he says, and Blaine smiles.

“Mmm. Good morning to you too.” Blaine shuffles closer and hooks a leg over Kurt’s. Kurt’s bed really is too small for the both of them, probably, but Kurt loves this, loves falling asleep and waking up together in a limb-woven tangle, pressed together and intertwined. “God, you’re comfortable.” He cups his hand at the back of Kurt’s neck and kisses him lightly. “Let’s stay here all day.”

“Kay,” Kurt nuzzles into the pillow, and wraps an arm around Blaine’s waist, pulling him even closer. “What time’sit?”

He can feel Blaine lift his head to check the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Not even eight. Are you even capable of sleeping in?”

“Mmm.” Kurt nuzzles in further, this time into the crook of Blaine’s neck. “You woke me up first.”

“You were kicking, I had to.”

“I don’t _kick_.”

“Yes you do,” Blaine says, and kisses him.

Kurt lets himself go, kisses Blaine back and lets his mind drift so that everything is warmth, and early-morning light creeping in at the edge of the curtains and his eyelids, and soft sheets against his bare skin, and Blaine, his mouth against his lips and then his neck and then his chest as he shuffles down under the sheet, hands and lips re-exploring well-known territory. Kurt closes his hands in Blaine’s hair, pets and tugs and pulls, as Blaine’s mouth trails down and down and down.

7.  
“And he serenaded me on the front steps of the school...”

Jack gives Kurt a skeptical look as he dumps coffee grounds into the compost bin. “He did not. That’s weird even by your standards.”

Kurt leans an elbow on the counter and rests his chin on it, one eye on the door. “He actually did. It was Lima, planning and rehearsing for surprise vocal performances was one of the least destructive ways to spend your time.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Jack shuts the lid on the coffee grounds and picks up a cloth to start wiping the machines down with. “I don’t suppose this paragon of boyfrienddom has a brother? Or a sister?”

“Mm. Brother, older. Probably not your type.”

“Why? How much older?”

Kurt bobbles his free hand. “Ten years? Give or take?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Hey, speak of the devil.” The door of the shop jingles as Blaine pulls it open, letting in a warm gust of indian summer air.

Blaine’s face lights when he sees Kurt behind the counter, and Kurt’s heart gives a happy wobble. “Hi, Kurt.”

“Hi baby.” Kurt stands on tiptoes to kiss him over the counter. “I’ll be ready in just a sec.”

Down the counter, Jack clears his throat in a way that is eerily and oddly reminiscent of Wes when he wants attention. Kurt tries to huff a sigh, but he can’t help smiling.

“Fine. Jack, this is my boyfriend Blaine.”

Jack drops the dishcloth to shake Blaine’s hand. “Why? Do you have another one somewhere?”

“Shut up. Blaine, this is Jack, my partner in caffeinated crime. Are you ready to go?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Blaine says to Jack, and holds out an arm for Kurt as he takes off his apron and ducks out from behind the counter.

“Backatchya, man. See you tomorrow, Kurt!”

Kurt waves over his shoulder as Blaine leads him out of the dim coffeeshop and out into the bright sunshine.

8.  
It’s weird that none of the lights are on when Kurt comes home Thursday night - Alex is out working and James has a late class, so Blaine was supposed to come over, and usually he beats Kurt back. Kurt turns on the hall light and hears rustling from the living room, and grips the strap of his bag a little tighter. “Hello?” he calls.

He’s met with a clatter and a curse that make him jump. When he rounds the corner into the living room Blaine is there, looking up at the door guiltily. The table is set, and matches are scattered across one of the place settings.

“Blaine? What’s going on?” Kurt hugs his arms around his chest and takes deep breaths, willing his heart rate to slow down.

“Uh. I made dinner,” Blaine waves at the table, at the bottle of pomegranate lemonade and a covered casserole dish.

“Oh, thank you, sweetheart!” Blaine smiles a little when Kurt hugs him tight, but still looks nervous when he pulls back. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s an, um. Apology dinner. I am _so_ sorry, Kurt, I really am -”

“Blaine?” Kurt cuts him off, stomach sinking. “What are you sorry...for?”

“I fell asleep last night and didn’t call you.”

“...What?” Kurt is baffled.

Blaine looks miserable “You were working late and you texted me on your break and said you were tired and work was driving you nuts and you just wanted to be able to hang out (Kurt snorts to himself, “hang out” was _not_ what he’d said he’d wanted to do, but Blaine’s eternal filter is adorable) and sleep so I promised I’d call when you were done with your shift but I fell asleep reading and then Sean came in and was a dick and I forgot all about it and all I could think of all day today was you sitting up last night and waiting for me to call and being sad and lonely - ”

“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt puts a hand on Blaine’s chest, and his jaw clicks shut. “Sweetheart. You were worried all day about this?”

Blaine nods morosely.

“Oh, honey.” Kurt hugs him again, tighter while Blaine buries his face in Kurt’s shoulder. “I was fine! I completely forgot about that, actually, when I got home I just crashed, I’m so sorry you were worried...”

Blaine untucks his head. “...so you’re not mad at me?”

“Blaine. Baby.” Kurt kisses his forehead. “If I had been sad or lonely or anything like that I just could have called you myself, you know.”

“I guess so.” Blaine shuffles a socked foot on the carpet. “I... overreact, sometimes.”

“I know you do, sweetheart.” Kurt pulls him in for another kiss, on the mouth this time, and Blaine looks much less woebegone when he finally pulls back. “But you are totally the best boyfriend in the world.” He sets his bag down and starts unfastening his jacket. “So. What’s for dinner?”

9.  
“Coke for Blaine, cran-and-club for Kurt, and virgin margarita for me!” Rachel passes their drinks across the table and slides into the booth next to Kurt, nudging his shoulder so hard he nearly spills his drink.

“Rachel!”

“Sorry,” she passes him a napkin, and Kurt rolls his eyes at Blaine and is rewarded with a small smile and a nudge against his ankle under the table.

“So!” Rachel declares, taking a prim sip and setting her glass back down. “What do you want to sing first?”

Blaine looks wary. “We’re actually going to sing?”

Kurt slides the napkin under his own glass, because, _rings_. “It’s a karaoke bar, Blaine, what did you think we were going to do?”

“In public?”

“You’ve sung in public a hundred times before.”

“Yeah, but that was different!”

“How-?”

“Hey, guys!” Rachel’s disbelieving query is cut off by the appearance of a gaggle of people from her and Kurt’s intro stagecraft class.

“Hi!” Rachel nearly bounces in her seat, and, oh, yes, there’s Dan, tall and quiet as ever in the back of the pack. “How are you guys?”

“Oh my god, Kurt!” Stephanie squeals and grabs Kurt’s arm, nearly dragging him out of the booth before he can get his feet firmly on the floor. “It has been _too long_ , you _have_ to sing with me.”

Kurt barely has time to make a sympathetic face at Blaine before he’s being dragged to the stage. Rachel and Stephanie squeal at each other as Jack flips through the songbook and Dan shrugs wordlessly at whatever he’s saying. Finally they all agree to _something_ \- Kurt’s learned not to ask beforehand what it is, that just leads to extra moments of agony waiting for truly horrendous backing tracks to start up - and Stephanie manhandles him to a spot on the stage and hands him a mic.

He can see Blaine, by himself now in the booth in the corner. He’ll loosen up, eventually, Kurt’s not really worried, and when the track starts Kurt folds his hands around the microphone and finds his eyes, bright flashes of warmth and encouragement, and sings for him.

10.  
“It’s - kind of late. Are you sure we should be out here?”

“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt wraps his arm around Blaine’s shoulder and squeezes his arm. “This is the city that never sleeps! Just stay away from, you know, the dark and scary alleys and you’ll be fine. You _have_ to see Times Square at night at least once.”

“Okay...” Blaine acquiesces, but settles more closely into Kurt’s hold on him.

Kurt loves New York in all its lights and moods but right now he loves it best at night, when the glittering lights stand out of the darkness and fall across his skin, and Blaine’s, turning it a riot of swirling tumbling luminescence as people eddy around them. And Times Square!

“We should come here for New Years,” Kurt says when they finally reach it, tipping his head back to look up at the Times Tower.

“But - we won’t be here for New Year’s, it’s winter break.” Something skitters in a doorway - a pigeon, probably - and Kurt can feel Blaine twitch.

“No, I know. When we’re older.” Kurt uses his other arm to pull him into a sideways hug. “We’ll have the classiest parties on the block, and then we’ll bring everyone down here for the countdown. It’ll be amazing.”

“ _You’re_ amazing,” Blaine says, and kisses Kurt’s hand where it’s clasped on his shoulder.

“Mmm. You too. “Oh, that’s the Nederlander down there.” Kurt points 41st Street. “Rent used to play there. Remember our first non-date?”

Blaine laughs, and Kurt can feel the buzz of it in his chest. “Oh god yes. We both bawled through the ending and looked like absolute idiots.”

“You gave me your Kleenex,” Kurt says, remembering. “You were always such a gentleman.”

“I don’t know, the last time I gave you tissues was - ”

“Blaine!” Kurt squeaks, and Blaine laughs, his eyes a little wicked, but they go wide when he looks over Kurt’s shoulder.

“Kurt,” he whispers, “there’s this huge guy, right by that building right there, just - _standing_ there like he’s got it staked out.”

Kurt looks over his shoulder. “Blaine, that’s a bouncer.”

“...oh.” Blaine looks mildly abashed, and Kurt finally decides to take pity on him.

“Do you want to head back?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

Kurt keeps his arm around Blaine as they walk back to his apartment, and Blaine snakes his arm around Kurt’s waist.

“We’ll get tickets for a show soon - student rush tickets are such a good deal, and people in my classes always seem to know people.”

Blaine hums, and Kurt squeezes his shoulder. “In the meantime, though, James is at Alex’s tonight.”

Blaine’s face brightens, and Kurt has to laugh. “Oh, Blaine. You’re going to love it here.”

 

**Meant to Be**

11.  
“Blaine...?”

Blaine winces and tries to shuffle the papers out of sight, but not before Kurt catches one and drags it out, crisscrossed with red ink, grade scribbled angrily at the top. “Blaine, what happened?”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Blaine’s shoulders are hunched, and he plucks the essay out of Kurt’s hand.

“You don’t have to be -”

“I failed, okay? I failed. It’s one grade, I’ll be fine.” Blaine shoves the paper back in a folder and drops the whole thing in a drawer.

Whatever he will be, Blaine certainly isn’t fine right now, and Kurt approaches him cautiously. “Do you need some help? Dan runs a study group for some other freshman, maybe he could - ”

“I don’t need help, I did fine on the midterm, I get the material. I just - ran out of time.” Blaine slumps into his chair and just looks tired. “The essay was due the same week as Wilkinson’s project, and I got caught so up in that I completely forgot about this one until like the night before. And I was supposed to help Wilkinson more this week and next, too, but now I have to rewrite this.” He knocks his knee against the drawer. “I wish I’d switched classes when I had the chance.”

“Well, there’s always next semester,” Kurt says, but Blaine sighs.

“Ugh, one semester at a time, I can’t think past December.” He scrubs his hand over his face and scowls.

Kurt feels helpless, but makes his voice bright. “Well, then, let’s think about December. I have _so_ many ideas for Christmas...”

12.  
“Oh, man, that sounds awesome.” Blaine waves Kurt into the room when he pokes his head around the door, and Kurt can’t make out the words on the other end of the line but he recognizes David’s voice, and waves.

“Hey, Kurt says hi.” Blaine grins and tips the phone back off his ear. “David says hi back. Yeah? What are you guys going to do next, then?” He returns the phone to his ear, his shoulders turned away from Kurt a little, as Kurt pulls his laptop from his bag and settles down on the bed - this could be a while.

When Blaine finally gets off the phone he’s grinning, and relaxed. Kurt puts aside his laptop. “How’s David?”

“Really great. He was just telling me about the project he’s got going for school - it’s really amazing.” He flips his phone from hand to hand. “I wish there was something like that here.”

Kurt feels a pang of guilt - it’s because he’s here that Blaine is in New York instead of on the West Coast, or anywhere else, but he pushes that aside. Blaine’s wanted to come to New York for years, not just for him.

“Maybe you can start something like it here. The music department’s always looking for fresh ideas.”

Blaine shrugs and sets his phone down. “Maybe. It’d be a big time commitment, though, and I’ve got too much to do as it is. It does sound amazing, though. How was your class?”

Kurt feels bad gushing, so he just says, “It was fine. Do you want to take tonight off? Make dinner, maybe watch a movie?”

Blaine’s eyes brighten. “Oh that sounds perfect.” He stands and kisses Kurt on the way to retrieve his backpack. “How do you always know just what I need?”

Kurt grins at him and stretches out on the bed. “I’m just talented.”

“At many things. So!” Blaine drops back into his chair heavily and pulls a thick folder out of his bag. “Music theory time!”

13.  
“It’s James and Alex’s anniversary, and I think I’ve been sexiled.” Kurt checks his watch as he shoulders his way through the door of his building. “Can we hang out in your room instead?”

There’s a rustle and a sigh from the other end of the line, and Kurt thinks he can hear a door shut. “I don’t know, Sean’s in tonight, and he’s being all...Sean.”

“I thought he worked Tuesdays?”

“He used to, but his schedule’s changed and I don’t want to have to ask him for it again.”

Kurt huffs, and stops walking. “What do you want to do then?”

“I don’t know.” Blaine’s sigh rustles staticky down the line. “I’ve got some work I have to get done, do you want to meet me in the library? We can hang out in the common room later if Sean’s still there when we’re done.”

That is not, at all, what Kurt wants to do with his evening, but Blaine has been trying to work harder, and one night actually doing homework together won’t kill him. “Fine. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Save me a seat?”

“Always. Love you, Kurt. And I am sorry.”

“It’s fine. Love you too, see you soon.”

 

14.  
Blaine sinks back into the couch, and Kurt frowns. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to go.”

“Blaine -”

“I said I’d go, okay?” Blaine pulls his computer back onto his lap and starts clicking. “I was just planning on getting some work done tonight.”

“But it’s Friday night. It’s date night.”

“I know! And that’s why I’m going to go.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“I’m going, Kurt, what else do you want?” Blaine doesn’t glare, but the look he gives Kurt over the screen of his laptop is annoyed.

“I don’t want you to go if you’re going to be pissy all night about it.”

“I am not being pissy.”

“Yes you - ! Okay. Fine. It’s fine. You don’t have to come.”

“You want me to, though.”

“Of course I do! Blaine, I love you, I love hanging out with you, and I’ve hardly gotten to see you all week.”

“Then I’m going.”

Kurt throws up his hands. “Fine! We’re leaving in ten minutes. And bring a hat, it’s going to be cold on the walk home.”

“Why, where are we going?”

“Mackey’s.”

“But that’s blocks from here, why do we always have to go where Rachel wants?”

“Because she invited us. If you want to go somewhere else, you plan it. Besides, you love Mackey’s.”

“Not when it’s a half-hour walk home at midnight.”

“Then don’t. Come.”

“I’m coming!”

“Then put your coat on, come on.”

Blaine mutters irritably as Kurt laces up his shoes, and Kurt pretends not to hear.

 

15.  
“Hey Blaine! Oh, honey, what’s wrong!”

Kurt opens the door to find a miserable-looking Blaine standing in the hallway, shoulders hunched, eyes glassy. As soon as the door is all the way open he shuffles forward and buries his face in Kurt’s neck. Kurt’s arms automatically close around him.

“Blaine? What is it?”

“I got _mugged._ ” His voice is muffled, but Kurt’s chest tightens. You hear stories all the time, of course, but the school is safe, and Blaine - if anything ever happened to Blaine -

“Well, not mugged.” Kurt lets out a relieved breath, too many too ugly images in his head. “But I was running errands and I was on the subway and someone stole my wallet, and now I have to get a new driver’s license and a new debit card and ID and everything -”

Still holding Blaine tightly around the middle with one hand, Kurt manages to walk them backwards into the entryway and close the door. He slides the chain across, too, just because. He’s had this scare, a time or two, when he’d put his wallet bag in a different compartment in his bag, and Blaine must feel awful.

“It’s okay,” he says softly, rubbing the back of Blaine’s neck soothingly. Blaine’s face is damp against his skin. “This stuff happens all the time, and I’ll help you with whatever paperwork you need.”

“No,” Blaine, and his hands grip Kurt’s side, and he raises his head. “Our picture was in it, Kurt. The one from prom. It’s been in there since then, I was going to keep it there -”

Kurt feels a quick stab of sympathetic loss. “Oh, Blaine.” Kurt kisses his flushed cheek. “That’s not a big deal! I have the file on my computer, we can print another one out tonight.”

“No!” Blaine shakes his head. “That was the one that you gave me, the next day, when you came over after school and we were supposed to be doing homework but we just listened to stupid pop music and danced in my room because prom had sucked but then it had been so much fun and you just wanted to keep dancing and then we just - you kissed me, and it was the happiest we’d ever been, and I told myself I’d try to always be there for you, like that, no matter how hard it was -”

He’s crying now, in earnest, little miserable sobs, and Kurt’s heart breaks for him. “Oh, Blaine.” He pulls him close again, and strokes a hand through his hair, petting gently until Blaine’s breath steadies again. “You are the biggest romantic in the _world_.

“It’s not very romantic to lose your boyfriend’s picture. I hate this city.” He sounds more morose than miserable, now, which Kurt takes as a good sign.

“It’s just a picture, Blaine.” Kurt kisses the part of his face that he can reach, somewhere above his ear. “We will print another one so you can carry it around and show everyone what a gorgeous boyfriend you have, and I will always remember how sweet you were to me. You still have me, after all.”

Blaine slides his arms around Kurt’s waist and squeezes, and then relaxes against him. “Yeahhh.” And then “Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“I have to replace _so many_ cards.”

 

16.  
 _We need to talk._

Kurt plucks the post-it note off the mirror with shaking fingers. It’s Blaine’s writing, no doubting that, his familiar scrawl and Kurt’s orange gel pen, the one he uses for editing essays.

_We need to talk._

We need to talk about _what?_ Kurt almost goes for his phone, but Blaine is in class all day, and Kurt’s not sure this is a conversation he wants to have over the phone anyway.

Oh god. Is this a conversation he doesn’t want to have over the phone?

He sinks down on the edge of the tub, turning the note over and over in his fingers. He’d seen it when he’d gotten into the shower, hadn’t read it yet, thought it was just another sweet little note from Blaine and he’d wanted to save it, wanted to savor the anticipation and then read it while he brushed his teeth, smiling over how sweet and ridiculous his boyfriend was.

_We need to talk._

Is there another guy? Was there a fight with his parents? Is it Kurt? Did he do something? Does Blaine want to break up? Kurt crumples the note and throws it in the trash, tightens the belt of his bathrobe and tries to concentrate on washing his face, but his hands are still shaking.

He turns off the water and braces his hands on the sink and watches his reflection. Bare, almost naked, hair wet and unstyled; Blaine is the only one who has ever gotten to see him like this, and still loves him. What would Kurt do without him?

Kurt turns the water on again and starts scrubbing his face. It’s not him. It’s not another guy.

What is he going to do without Blaine?

17.  
“Blaine, do you want to transfer schools?”

Blaine is sprawled on Kurt’s bed, tracing patterns on the bedspread with a fingertip. All afternoon he’s been hedging, hinting, trying to start this conversation, and it’s taken so long that Kurt’s afraid he never will and just wants to get it out in the open, where they can discuss it. Where it can become real so Kurt can deal with it and then have dealt with it and not have to deal with it anymore.

Blaine looks up, his fingers curling into his palm, and for a moment he just looks so lost. “Yes,” he says finally, and then just waits.

Kurt swallows, tries to blink away the sting in his eyes. “Okay. Where?” He knows the answer to that, too, because Blaine’s never been subtle, but he needs to hear him say it.

“San Francisco.”

“Okay.” Kurt takes a deep breath. The sting is gone, good. Blaine came to New York for Kurt, and he is not happy here, and now Kurt needs to be supportive, and help him get wherever he needs to go, no matter how much Kurt doesn’t want him to. “What can I do?”

 

18.  
“Kurt!” Kurt is late; traffic at this hour is horrendous and there was a delay on the subway and he had texted Blaine frantically once he’d gotten above ground and could get a good signal again, _I’m on my way, I’m sorry, I love you, see you soon!_. And now Blaine is waiting for him, jumping to his feet and waving a hand to catch Kurt’s attention, and he looks tired but delighted, and Kurt’s stomach falls.

Blaine kisses him, right there in the crowded baggage claim, and Kurt digs his fingers into Blaine’s shoulder and clings, just a little.

“How was San Francisco?”

Blaine slings his duffel bag over his shoulder. “It was _amazing_. The people are all wonderful, the school is incredible, the program is exactly what I’ve been looking for -”

Kurt holds the door for him and listens to him go on and on, talking about the professors and the students he met with and the guys he stayed with and the _city,_ , always the city, his eyes bright and shining and so so happy.

Kurt stops him with a hand on his chest before they take the steps back to the subway, and kisses him there while the rush hour foot traffic swirls around them, ignoring the jostles and glares from harried commuters.

Blaine pulls back slowly when Kurt loosens his grip on his arm, and his eyes are soft. “What was that for?”

“I love you,” he says, because he does, so much, and he recognizes the excitement in Blaine’s voice, remembers it so well, the thrill of finding the place you were always meant to be.

Blaine kisses the corner of Kurt’s mouth, and takes his hand. “I love you too.”

 

19.

“Keep or toss?” Kurt holds up a stack of t-shirts. Blaine looks over his shoulder from where he’s rooting in his closet.

“Keep.”

“And these. Keep or toss?”

“Keep. Kurt,” Blaine says gently, emerging with a plastic storage tub. “I already went through all of my stuff when I moved out here to begin with. I haven’t really accumulated enough to need to leave anything behind.”

“Yeah.” Kurt sits down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I know.” He sets the stack of shirts in the tub Blaine sets next to him. “I really am happy for you, you know that, right?”

Blaine gives him a soft smile. “I know.”

“And you know I’m going to miss you like crazy?”

“...Yeah. I know. I’m going to miss you too.”

Blaine meets Kurt’s upraised face with his lips, and the boxes get pushed aside as Blaine lays Kurt down on the bed. Some things are more important than packing.

20.

The miles pass and Kurt watches every exit sign with another stomach-dropping twist of grief, numbers sliding past like the days slipping away from them, like the countdown they’ll never have again, to see each other again or to dread parting again. When they finally reach the airport Kurt turns for the parking garage, not the curbside drop-off. It’s safer, he knows, and better, for both of them, if they can just leave it here without getting worked up about it anymore, but they’re down to minutes now and Kurt is greedy for it, for any last instant he can spend with Blaine before saying goodbye.

Blaine doesn’t say anything when Kurt turns off the engine and gets Blaine’s bags out of the back himself, just gives him a look that Kurt has to turn away from, and takes his hand.

Blaine doesn’t let go, not as they maneuver the luggage through the automatic doors, not as Blaine scans his ticket to check in and collects his boarding pass, not as they check the departure boards and the directory and, wordlessly, turn together towards the right terminal. And then they’re there, outside of security, and Kurt has to set down Blaine’s suitcase because he can’t go any farther and Blaine is setting down his messenger bag to turn towards him and here they are, this is it.

“Call me when you get in?” Kurt’s voice cracks a little, and Blaine nods.

“Text and let me know you made it home safe.”

“I will.”

“And I’ll - send pictures, when I get settled. You can help me with decoration ideas.”

“You’d better.” It feels like the bottom has fallen out of the world. All this summer there has been this day to look forward to, and nothing beyond it, and now Blaine is talking about tomorrow as if it’s a certainty, as if the world can go on turning and tiny apartments can go on needing Kurt’s artistic touch. Kurt’s still not sure if they can. “And I’ll come visit in the spring, and I can help you with the first-hand details then.”

Kurt straightens Blaine’s lapel and wants to ask for more than a visit, wants to fight for them to stay together, side-by-side, where they belong. But he won’t, and it kills Kurt a little to know that he won’t, because Blaine wouldn’t say yes anyway. Kurt would hate him for saying no, and Blaine would hate him for asking, and so Kurt would hate himself for asking, and for resenting Blaine’s answer.

“You should,” is all Blaine says, and slings his bag over his shoulder. Kurt’s heart squeezes in his chest; there isn’t enough air, there isn’t enough _time._ Suddenly Blaine’s hand is on his arms, Blaine’s mouth is on his and he’s kissing him, hard and too possessive, and then he’s gone. Kurt’s eyes blink back open to see him walking away, his back so straight, his suitcase dragging from a white-knuckled hand.

There’s nothing left to do but leave, so Kurt turns, and walks away.

**3,000 Miles**

21.  
Kurt climbs out of the shower and grabs his bathrobe, toweling his hair quickly as he darts from the warm bathroom into his bedroom, where his computer is already on and Skype is started up. He gives his head one last shake and drops the towel on his bed and checks that his headphones are plugged in, and dials Blaine.

“Hi, you,” Blaine says, his picture pixelating into view, and Kurt leans into the desk and smiles.

“Hi.” It’s been a long day, not a bad one, just a long one, and he’s been looking to this call all through classes and shifts and homework.

“How are you?”

“Doing alright,” Kurt shrugs. “Ready for this week to be over. Same old. You?”

“Good! I found a place I want to take you when you come out here - there’s a bar around the corner that does live performances twice a week. I think you’d love it.”

“That sounds great. What - “ he breaks off as someone calls Blaine’s name on the other end of the line, and Blaine looks up from the camera and says something back Kurt can’t make out.

“Hey, Kurt, sorry to cut this short, but I promised David I’d help him with an arrangement tonight, is that okay?”

It’s not okay. David gets Blaine all the time, Kurt only gets him for these few hours in the evenings. But Kurt can’t say that, so he forces a smile, and says “Sure! Have fun. Say hi for me.”

“Will do. Love you Kurt.”

“Love you too.”

Kurt sighs as the screen goes blank again. He hadn’t planned on having time to do anything else tonight. He tells himself that at least he can get ahead on his homework.

It’s really not the same, though.

21.  
Kurt wrings out the dishcloth with maybe more force than is strictly necessary, and snaps it at the nearest machine. “And then he said that clearly since I hadn’t read the assignment, I should re-write the project and then present my new findings to the class.”

Jack scrunches his nose in a sympathetic wince. “Ouch.”

"I appealed to the professor who thankfully realized that I was only trying to think outside of the box."

"Happy ending, then," Jack toasts Kurt with half a cup of coffee. The scent of cinnamon wafting from it reminds him of Blaine. "If he gives you a hard time again, though, and you need some cheering up," he sets the cup on the counter and walks past Kurt to pick up a sponge for his half of the cleaning. "You know where to find me," he finishes, and slaps Kurt’s ass.

Kurt's jaw drops so far it feels like it's come unhinged. " - What?!" he sputters, when he at least manages the power of speech.

"You know, cheering up," Jack says, grabbing the sponge and flicking the sink on with the back of his wrist. "Mental release. Physical relaxation." He winks.

"But - Blaine - “ Kurt coughs out. His ears feel like they're on fire.

"What about Blaine?" Jack asks, and then his expression changes from confusion to horror so quickly it would be hilarious if this were happening to anyone else. "Oh, god, you're still together, aren't you."

"Oh course we are! What did you _think?_ " Kurt splutters.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry, Kurt, I - I never would have, I didn't mean, I just assumed -"

Kurt wets his dishcloth, wrings it out angrily. "It's fine," he finally says, and sighs. "It's not like you're the first."

Jack continues to stammer apologies while Kurt tries to tune him out, embarrassment and self-consciousness buzzing in his ears. The worst part is that everyone seems to assume that just because Blaine is at the other end of the country, just because they're not attached at the hip anymore, that they're not together anymore. And Kurt knows distance relationships don't always last, knows the odds are against them, but he's had the odds stacked against him his whole life and never let it get in his way. He'd thought at least that Jack, of all people, would know him - them - well enough to realize that.

 

22.  
By the time Kurt gets home Tuesday night he feels like he can hardly see straight. It’s raining, of course, and rain in this city isn’t what it was back in Lima. It’s cold, and heavy, and soaks through everything and turns the grey buildings grey and then blue and then black as the night comes on.

Kurt hadn’t brought an umbrella this morning and now his bag is damp and his jacket is wet all the way through. All he wants is to curl up with a cup of tea and watch a movie with Blaine, but he has a mountain of homework and his computer is refusing to play DVDs and Blaine is in California. So Kurt shrugs out of his wet clothes, pulls on pajamas and a Dalton hoodie - his, not Blaine’s; they’d switched last year but this year they were in the same place and had switched back, and swapping again so he always had a sweatshirt a little more worn and smelling like Blaine was one more detail Kurt had forgotten when they’d packed up Blaine’s room.

After half an hour of staring unseeing at his reading, Kurt gives up and crawls into bed.

 _Love you. Miss you. Wish you were here,_ he texts. Blaine is still in class, three hours behind, and Kurt doesn’t expect a reply but wants one anyway.

He pulls up the covers and hugs his pillow to his chest. His readings can wait five minutes. He’ll just close his eyes...

It’s completely dark when he wakes up to the beep of his phone. _Here, sorry baby. Skype session in 15? Just got out of class! Love you too._

Kurt checks the time; the text is hours old, and Blaine will have gone to sleep already. He’s missed him for tonight.

Kurt curls around the pillow again. He’s too tired to try to fight off the cold clench of disappointment and loneliness, so he spends what energy he has trying not to cry.

 

23.  
It’s still light in California, and Kurt likes the extra wedges of daylight he gets with Blaine, on these calls. The setting sun is glowing golden-green through the curtains at Blaine’s window. Kurt had made them, in between projects for his design class, and packed them up carefully before mailing them across the country. He likes being able to see them there, at the edge of the frame when Blaine calls, something that he made there with Blaine, that he can see and that Blaine can touch and think of him.

Blaine’s phone chirps an alarm, and Blaine stands up, just out of frame. “I’ll be right back, I just have to grab something out of the oven.”

"What's cooking?” Kurt asks, when Blaine slides back into his seat a minute later.

“Butternut squash ravioli.”

Kurt smiles, but it feels tight in his chest. "Hey, is that what you made for your ridiculous apology dinner?"

Blaine just gives him a blank look.

Kurt twists the cord of his laptop speakers in his fingers. "Remember, that time when you forgot to call before you went to bed, and then felt terrible about it because you are a ridiculous romantic, and made dinner to try to apologize?" Blaine's eyes dart around the screen, and then his face lights up, finally, in recognition. "Oh! Yeah, I remember now. Yeah, that."

"What's the occasion?"

Blaine shrugs. "End of the quarter is coming up. David aced his midterm, so I figured I'd do something to celebrate. Max is in charge of alcohol, though." Kurt's heart tightens a little more. He doesn't know who Max is, doesn't particularly care; he trusts Blaine, doesn't even consider making it an issue. But he remembers the meal, the warm spicy smell after the long autumn afternoon, Blaine's eyes shyly brown in the lamplight; how cozy the kitchen had felt and how the keen awareness of being cared for had tugged so happily. And it's stupid, but Kurt doesn't want to share, Blaine or his time or his cooking skills.

But there's no way to say that without sounding jealous and possessive, so he just smiles and says, "Sounds lovely."

24.  
Blaine’s giggles come breathlessly over the phone, and Kurt’s stomach twists in a hot confusing knot of embarrassment and frustration. “Blaine!” He tries not to whine, but it’s so hard.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Kurt, I just can’t.” Blaine’s giggles turn into a cough, and Kurt can feel his own face flame. He growls in the back of his throat and pushes a hand down into his underwear, where, despite the embarrassment at his apparent utter inability to be sexy over the phone, he’s still hard. The sparking arousal in his spine and at the back of his neck does nothing to quell his frustration, or his embarrassment. “It’s fine,” he says, snappier than he means to.

Blaine clears his throat and takes a breath, and when he speaks again it’s calmer. “I really am sorry, Kurt. Maybe we can try some other time?”

Kurt shrugs his shoulders into the mattress. “Sure.”

“Kurt...Kurt. Please don’t be mad,” Blaine pleads, sounding contrite, now, and but still more than a little amused. “It’s just -”

“I know. It’s fine. Um. If we’re not going, to, uh, I’m gonna go for now. Is that okay?”

Blaine sighs. “Okay. If you’re sure you’re not mad...?”

“I’m not mad,” Kurt says shortly, knows that it’s still snippy but can’t help it. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Okay, I love you, Kurt. Sweet dreams.”

“Love you too.”

Kurt tosses the phone to the pillow beside him and kicks off his underwear. If phone sex isn’t going to work, he’s just going to have to do this himself.

When he finally closes a hand around himself, though, his erection wilts, and when he closes his eyes and tries to imagine Blaine and his warm breath on his skin and his hands all he can conjure is frustration, and guilt over snipping at Blaine. He wants _Blaine_ , not just an orgasm, no matter what his body is trying to tell his brain. He sighs, tries again, fails again, and fishes his phone out from the covers.

 _I’m sorry_ , he texts. _I love you. I really do._

After a minute his phone buzzes with the reply.

_I know. I miss you, too._

It still doesn’t make him feel any better, and Kurt just holds the phone tightly, and tries to sleep.

25.  
“How are you, baby?” Blaine’s voice is soft and warm in his ear, and Kurt pulls the covers up over his shoulders and closes his eyes and tries to pretend that he’s here, with him. The other side of the bed is cold, though, and doesn’t dip under Blaine’s familiar weight, and he is alone.

“I miss you.”

“I know.” A rustle, and Kurt imagines Blaine nestling down into his pillow. “I miss you too.”

“This sucks.”

“It really, really does. We’ve got the summer, though, and you’ll come out to visit soon, right?”

“Of course.” Kurt tries to focus on that, but they both seem so far away. “But - I miss you _now_.

“I know, baby. I miss you now too. Soon, though, that’s all I’ve got.”

It’s not enough, though, and there’s nothing Kurt can do about it.

26.  
“You can come out for February break, right?”

Blaine’s unhappy huff crackles over the line, and Kurt can see his forehead crease. “No, I have to work Monday.”

“You don’t get President’s Day off?”

“Unfortunately not. What about the next weekend?”

“The 24th?”

“Yeah.”

“I have a presentation that Monday. I’d be a wreck.”

“You can’t do it ahead of time?”

“Revue rehearsals. Won’t have time.”

Kurt’s frustration scratches at his throat, and makes his sigh come out heavier than he means. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t a continent away.”

“Hey,” Blaine’s voice comes sharp and quick. “You’re a continent away, too.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” Kurt scrubs a hand over his face, doesn’t sound as sorry as he feels, doesn’t feel as sorry as he probably should.

“I just - I know you love New York, Kurt, but please don’t blame this all on me.”

“I’m not! I’m not. I promise.” Kurt draws tiny xs through the dates they’ve rejected. “So, we already know March is no good. What about April?”

“...April I think I can do.”

27.  
“What is it, Rachel?” Kurt doesn’t mean to be short, but he was _just_ getting on a roll with this section, and Rachel couldn’t have waited another hour to have her weekly crisis of confidence?

“Finn just called. I - Can I come over, Kurt?”

Kurt scratches his fingers through his hair; he has to write three pages tonight if he’s going to stay on schedule, he has to bring his designs in for approval at fuck o’clock tomorrow morning, and Rachel hasn’t talked to Finn in three months. “Call me when you’re down the street. I’ll meet you at the door.”

Rachel is red-eyed but otherwise apparently composed when Kurt holds the door open for her to come in, and she follows him upstairs quietly enough. When they get to his room, though, her spine and her face crumples and she sags onto his bed.

"Do you want tea? Or water or anything?"

Rachel shakes her head. "No, thank you." She draws a deep breath, though, and seems to be steeling herself. "Finn wants us to get back together."

"...Oh. Is he...?”

She shakes her head. "He's still in the army, of course. And when I asked he said he wasn't sure if he'd re-enlist or not in two years. He wants us to try a distance relationship."

"That's a big change. Do you think you want to try?"

Rachel flops backwards on his bed dramatically. "I don't know! This is all so sudden. I want to be together, but, Kurt, when I see you and Blaine - you're miserable!"

Kurt's spine straightens. "I'm not miserable."

Rachel rolls her eyes. "Please. Ever since he left it's like the light went out of your life or something. I see it, don't think I don't. You live for the skype sessions and the phone calls and that's no way to live. And you don't have an end in sight - what if he gets a job, or wants to go to grad school on the west coast? And you want to stay here? It's not living, Kurt, not when you spend so much time missing him."

"It's worth it," Kurt protests, feeling something dark and ugly threaten to unfurl in his chest.

Rachel props herself up on her elbows. "Is it?”

It's a plea, not a challenge, and Kurt opens his mouth to reassure her, but all he can say is, "I think you have to decide for yourself."

29.  
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Kurt says, and hunches at the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t planned to say it, but now he has and he can’t take it back, because it’s true.

“Kurt - “ Kurt flinches at the sound of his name in _that_ tone of voice, but what comes next is infinitely worse.

“I don’t know if I can either.”

That should make it easier, right? Mutual. Friendly. They can stay friends, can’t that? Oh, god. Kurt presses his knuckles to his mouth. _Friends._ Blaine doesn’t say anything else, though, so Kurt babbles to fill the silence.

“I can’t - I don’t go out at night if I think you might call. I can’t focus in class because I’m writing emails to you. I can’t _sleep_ without you next to me. It’s not living, Blaine, not when my heart is three thousand miles away. I _can’t_.”

He’s crying, now; knows Blaine is, too, by the way his breath comes over the line.

“I know,” he finally says, and it’s like lead in his chest, like ice. “Me, too.”

“I love you,” Kurt says, because he does, so much, and he can’t stand it.

“I love you too.”

And then there’s silence, and the sound of breathing, and then there’s a click, and nothing.

30.  
Kurt considers deleting his entire profile, just so he doesn’t have to do this, but it’s too hard to find people at school without it, too hard for classmates and student directors and professors to find _him_. So he opens his profile, and clicks the right check box, and hits save, and wishes James would turn the volume off on his phone so that Kurt didn’t have to hear it chirp with the new Facebook alert.

_Kurt Hummel is no longer in a relationship._


	2. Chapter 2

**Live a Little**

31.  
The club is dark, and the music is loud, and this feels nothing like Scandals except for the way it makes Kurt's stomach cringe for all the ways this doesn't feel right. Then, it had been doing something so not him (not _them_ ) for the sake of stupid jealousy, and now it's adventuring and exploring without Blaine there with him. Alex seems comfortable next to him, though, and he leans into her shoulder and her confidence as they approach the table where James and Jack are already waiting.

“Ahoy!” James lifts glass and toasts Alex. “Where'd you find him?”

“Library. Where else?” Alex gives Kurt a bump with her hip, and he shoots her a glare but slips into the booth anyway. “At least branch out to the dance studios, or something, if you don't want us to find you.”

“If you wanted me to come you could have just asked,” Kurt says, nodding thanks to James as he pushes over a glass of water.

“We did. Repeatedly. But when Alex came into the shop today and said she hadn't seen you in three days we decided it was time for drastic measures.”

“Such good friends,” Kurt deadpans.

“Seriously, though,” and Jack does look a little serious, uncharacteristically so. “At least take a break to get your mind off it. Drown your sorrows, that sort of thing.” He sets down his glass and stands, and walks over to Kurt's side of the booth. “May I have this dance?”

Kurt looks at Jack, looks at the crowded dance floor, city people moving to a beat he doesn't know. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“Live a little!” Jack insists, wiggling his fingers. Kurt has to laugh, and when Jack grabs his hand, Kurt follows him onto the dancefloor.

32.  
It’s a good night until they make it back to the apartment, and Alex and James say goodnight and disappear into James’ room, and Kurt is left alone in the hallway. Kurt opens the door to his own room and it’s dark, and quiet, and cold, and when he flicks on the light it’s empty, too.

In bed he curls his hand around his phone until the case starts digging into his fingers, and then he tucks it under his pillow and tries not to feel it there, the silent still weight of it. Tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow _has_ to be better.

33.  
Stephen’s hair is curling attractively around his ears, and, like his fingers curled around the drawing pencil, make Kurt want to keep looking.

Stephen must feel Kurt’s eyes on him, because he glances to the side, and he smiles slow and shyly before he ducks his head and returns to his sketch. Kurt feels caught and guilty and looks away, flushing uncomfortably.

Next to him, Susan scribbles something on the corner of her paper and kicks his ankle, pushing the pad towards him.

_He’s cute!_

Kurt rolls his eyes and shoves the sketchpad back at her. Susan just adds another note below the first one.

_You’re allowed to look_

Kurt huffs but glances sideways at Stephen again. He’s got his tongue between his teeth, now, and his wrist is describing delicate arcs across the page as he draws. It’s attractive, undoubtedly, and it’s a strange unwelcome kind of freedom to be allowed to look, and let his imagination run away with him a little. It might be very nice, to be with an artist.

34.  
When his phone rings Kurt answers it without looking at the caller ID; James should be back soon and he’d promised to stop at the store on his way home, and he can never remember where to find the pesto.

_“Hi, Kurt.”_

“Blaine!” Kurt looks at the clock; two in the afternoon in California. “…Hi. Is everything okay?”

_“Of course. I just wanted to call and say hi. How’re you doing?”_

Kurt closes his laptop and can’t say any of the things he wants to. So he says, “Good! How’s everything there?”

_“Oh, it’s great. Just finished up a project, so I’m going to spend the next twelve hours doing absolutely nothing. It’s going to be_ awesome.”

“What project?”

_”Just a composition for music theory class. Not big thing, but. I liked it.”_

“Mm.” Kurt stands up and moves to his bed. “You should send it to me. I’d like to hear it.”

“Sure! What have you been up to?”

“Oh, not much.” Kurt stretches out on his bed and rests his chin on a folded arm. “Work. Class. Homework. Sleep.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Oh, you know it.”

The conversation drifts to other casual topics, and when they finally say goodbye when Blaine excuses himself to get an early dinner, Kurt realizes just how much time has passed.

_It was good talking to you_ , he texts, because it was, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to say that. He doesn’t expect a response, not really, but one comes anyway.

_You too!_

Kurt sets his phone aside and opens his laptop again, humming a little to himself. They can do this, apparently, just be friends, and he’s glad.

35.  
“Any exciting plans for the weekend?” Rachel is stretched out on his couch, notebook propped on her chest.

“Have you heard me mention any plans?”

“ _No_ , but you could always be withholding information.”

“If I was withholding, why would I tell you now?”

“Because you’re a simple man, Kurt Hummel, and you appreciate a direct approach.”

“Of course.” The kettle starts whistling, so he pours two mugs and brings the tea out to Rachel. “What about you? Hot date?” he asks, arching an eyebrow to make her laugh as she wraps her hands around her mug.

“Maaaaybe,” she says coyly, batting her eyelashes in a way that makes Kurt’s stomach sink a little. Not on Rachel’s behalf – she and Finn are firmly back in the will-they-or-won’t-they phase, and it’s the Rachel-dates-other-boys-and-finds-them-lacking stage of the “won’t they” part of that, which is fine, whatever, Kurt just wants whatever makes them happy. But it means another Friday night alone.

“Well, have fun,” he says.

Rachel actually looks thoughtful for a moment, and pats his knee. “You’ll find somebody soon,” she says.

36.  
“Blaine, hi!” Kurt grins when he answers the phone, just in time to open the door to the building and get in out of the cold spring wind. “I was just going to call you. How’s it going?”

They talk regularly, now, texts and emails and a phone call at least once a week, the way Kurt would talk to Finn when he was in basic and always reachable. It might never be _easy_ , but it’s nice, and Kurt would miss it if they didn’t.

_”Hi, Kurt. Really great, how are you?”_

“Oh, the usual.” Kurt flicks on the lights in the living room, takes off his shoes and leaves them by the door. “Midterms are coming up, so everyone in class thinks the world is ending. Show goes up in three weeks, so everyone on crew thinks the world is ending. And cast lists for the fall shows come out on Monday, so…”

_“World ending?”_

“Exactly. Not for me, though, I just go on being fabulous.”

Blaine’s laugh is warm, even a continent away. _“You always do. Hey, did you get your tickets figured out?”_

It takes Kurt a moment to figure out what he’s talking about. “Oh! Yeah, I did. Speaker,” he says, turning on speakerphone and dropping the phone on his desk so he can take off his jacket and hang it up. “I’m going to fly out of Dayton, Carole can drop me off on the way to some fundraiser thing for Dad. Then on Sunday I’ll just fly straight from San Fran to JFK.”

_”Sounds like a plan._

Kurt picks the phone back up. “Back now. Yeah, the timing worked out well. Sorry I can’t come in til Tuesday.”

_”No worries, I’m just glad you can come at all_.” Something _dings_ in the background, and Kurt can hear a rustling. _“Oh, god, sorry, Kurt, I have to go. Talk to you later this weekend?_

“Sure. Got a hot date?”

It’s meant to be a joke; it’s something Carole had always asked him or Finn whenever they’d been antsy to go or leave somewhere, but the silence that follows is awkward, and telling.

“Oh,” Kurt says. “I didn’t mean – “ He’s not sure what he didn’t mean, actually, but Blaine just says, “No worries! I really do have to go, though, sorry, Kurt. Talk to you later?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Kurt says, and can hear the lack of enthusiasm in his own voice, and tries to push through. “Take care.”

“You too,” Blaine says, and then the line goes dead.

37.  
“Dance with me?”

It’s just them, this time, in the club, just Kurt and Jack, and if Kurt had known it was going to be just them he’s not sure if he still would have come, but now that he’s here, he doesn’t seem to be leaving. And he’s certainly not saying no as Jack takes his hand and pulls him onto the dance floor, and then takes his waist and pulls him into a dance.

Kurt’s not comparing, Kurt _doesn’t_ compare, because that way lies madness, but he likes the way Jack moves, the slim confident grace of him as he pulls Kurt closer; the way he never makes him feel threatened, only sexy, and wanted.

He’s taller than Kurt, just a little, and Kurt only notices because of how he has to reach his arms up to close his hands over Jack’s shoulders, and how Jack’s head drops a little, to brush his forehead against Kurt’s cheek as his arms slide around his waist.

The track changes, and Kurt has to muffle a laugh in his shoulder.

“What?” Jack’s breath is warm in his ear, and makes goosebumps threaten on Kurt’s arms. Jack’s arms tighten around him.

“This song.” It’s Lady Gaga, a remix, and Kurt remembers practicing this song in the McKinley choir room with all of the other rejects and misfits and dreaming of the day when he would be out of there, and making his own way in the world far away from home. And now he’s in New York, in the arms of a painfully attractive guy, and it’s _wonderful_. It feels like victory, and it makes Kurt want more.

He presses closer to Jack, lets one hand fall from his shoulder to skirt his waist and then rest on the small of his back, not pressing, not grinding, just holding. Kurt closes his eyes and lets his head drop to Jack’s shoulder, and lets himself sink into it, into the heat, into the music, into Jack.

38.  
Susan knocks on the door and puts her head into the costume room. “Kurt? You’re still here?”

Kurt lifts his foot off the treadle and his eyes off the skirt he’s hemming. “Hmm?”

Susan walks all the way into the room and flicks on the light next to him; there’s an overhead, but he’s mostly been working by the little light on the sewing machine. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Kurt looks at the pinned-together and chalk-marked garments draped over a chair; the notebook with its list of measurements, the little laundry basket with the completed pieces folded neatly in it. “Ten?”

“It’s two in the morning. Didn’t the custodian kick you out?”

“Oh.” Kurt pushes his chair back from the machine and flexes his ankle. “We have an understanding.”

“I bet. What’s got you so hooked, anyway?”

Now that he knows how late it is, Kurt can feel how dry his eyes are, and he rubs at them, but he still doesn’t feel tired. “I got a wave of inspiration for the costumes tonight. I finally found a unifying theme – in history class, of all places – so I went to Michael’s after dinner and got the supplies, and.” He shrugs. “Been here since.”

Susan plucks a vest from the basket of completed pieces and turns it over in her hands, then looks at his to-do pile on the chair. “I think I see what you’re going for. That’s brilliant, Kurt.”

Kurt doesn’t fight the pleased smile that comes at the praise. It _is_ a brilliant idea, if he does say so himself, and it’s satisfying to finally have his ideas appreciated.

“But, seriously Kurt, if I leave you down here you’re going to keel over in your oh-so-fashionable boots, and we’re going to be down one costume designer, and Robbie will kill me, and then he’ll dig you up and kill you.”

“But - “

“But nothing, Hummel.” Susan stands and hits “pause” on his Florence/Adele/My Brightest Diamond Thoughtful-Yet-Energizing playlist, and then unplugs his machine.

“Hey!”

“Costumes’ll still be here tomorrow, Kurt. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“You’re not my mother,” he grouses, flipping up the presser foot to rescue his in-progress pieces, and then pulls the cover up over the machine.

“Nope, just your stage manager, so I may not have brought you into this world, but I can _totally_ take you out of it.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. You see me? I’m coming,” Kurt grumbles, but he’s smiling, and Susan’s grinning at him too.

“That’s a good boy. Now come on, I’ll get you coffee before I put you to bed. Decaf,” she clarifies hastily.

“Susan MacAvoy, I love you forever.”

“Don’t butter me up, Hummel. It’s the coffee you love. And the job.”

Kurt just pulls her into a half-hug as he goes to flip off the lights. He _does_ love the coffee, and Susan, but he loves the job most of all. Nights like this, just losing himself in the job and his playlists, envisioning how his costumes are going to be the glue that holds a production together, physical evidence of the audience’s suspension of disbelief as the actors transport them to a different world. It’s everything he’d imagined when he’d first dreamed of coming to New York.

“I love all of it.”

“I know you do.” Susan laughs, and hands him his coat and his bag, and pushes him out the door.

39.  
To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Truly, The Tempest hath never known such costuming. Look upon my works and tremble_ [Media Message Attached]

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _How are you still up? Also, those look incredible. Louis won his bid for Shakespeare, then?_

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Susan went home for the weekend. No one was around to kick me out of my rightful domain. Victory is miiiine!_

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Also, yes. Kind of wish I’d auditioned, I would make an *awesome* Ariel. Alas._

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _Wow you’re punchy. Also, don’t you have class in like two hours?_

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _And you would have made the most awesome Ariel ever. The most awesome anything, actually._

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Aww, you’re sweet. And hush you. This is why I buy coffee by the gallon. Bushel. Thing._

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _And you’re cute when you’re loopy. Sweet dreams._

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _You could always help keep me awake…_

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Blaine?_

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Hello?_

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Oh god I’m so sorry. You can’t hold my sleepy-drunk texts against me._

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _It’s fine_

40.  
 _”Are you sure this is a good idea?”_ Rachel’s voice comes thin and tinny from where Kurt’s phone is set to speakerphone on his desk.

“Rachel, we’ve been over this. We are friends. We have had this trip planned for months. There is no reason this has to be anything more than that.”

_”Mhmmmm.”_

Rachel’s smug knowingness is reaching unbearable proportions. “Alright, unless you have anything useful to add, I’m going.”

_“Ouch, Kurt.”_

“Do you?”

_“Fine. Have a safe flight. And say hi to Carole for me.”_

“Will do. Have a good night.”

_”You too.”_

Kurt lets the phone go dark when Rachel hangs up. A minute later Carole pokes her head in the doorway. “How’s everything coming, sweetie?”

Kurt pauses in the middle of trying to decide whether his cream cardigan or his navy one (the one with what Blaine had always called the Paddington-bear fastenings) is more versatile. “Great!”

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“I will.” Kurt gives her a reassuring smile, and she closes his door behind herself. These last two days at home in Lima have been good, and for all New York is wonderful, an escape and a destination and where Kurt wants to spend every moment of his life, it can never be the place of strength his parents’ home is, and whatever he says to Rachel, Kurt feels like he needs that strength. Keeping in touch with Blaine, _as friends,_ is one thing; it’s no different, Kurt tells himself, than how Rachel and Finn and Artie and Tina and Sam and Quinn had been able to be around each other and work together in school and at Glee club after they’d broken up. And it’s probably just because he never had to deal with being around an ex at school that this trip seems so fraught. Not with danger, necessarily, just… fraught. But every time he’s thought about cancelling the trip, maybe giving his tickets to Rachel or changing them to go see Mercedes, that just seems so much worse.

He settles on the blue sweater and folds it neatly on top of the rest of the clothes in his suitcase, and then zips it closed. For better or for worse, he’s going.

 

**The City By the Bay**

41.  
Kurt tips his head onto Blaine’s shoulder with a groan. “Can’t we go home? I need to sleep for a year.”

Blaine just laughs. “You’ve got to push through the jetlag! You’re never going to adjust if I let you sleep.” He jiggles his shoulder, making Kurt’s head bounce gently. “Besides, it’s just three hours. How tired can you be?”

“Nnngh.”

“See, I told you not to stay up all night packing before your flight.”

“I wasn’t packing!”

“Repacking, then.” Kurt can tell he’s grinning by the sound of his voice, and just _hmphs_.

“Alright, here’s our stop.” Blaine waits for Kurt to lift his head before he stands up.

Outside it’s wonderfully warm after the cold gray New York winter, and the shop windows glint silvery in the sun. San Francisco’s not as tall as New York, and the hills (oh, the hills - as Kurt gets off the streetcar behind Blaine, he can see what the hills have done for his legs) give it a texture and a personality he can only describe as _friendly_ , though he’s still not sure how, exactly, a city can be friendly. He likes the differentness, likes feeling so many thousands of miles away from home in a place that is so clearly thousands of miles away. Even the coffee tastes different, but Blaine grins when he mentions it and says it’s just his imagination.

“There’s something about this place,” Kurt muses, as they walk from the coffee shop to Blaine’s campus – Blaine promised him coffee and a tour to get him out of the house after they got in from the airport, even though Kurt wanted nothing more than to collapse right there on the couch.

“Whassat?” Blaine sucks chocolate syrup off the end of his straw and dunks it back into his cup.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says.

By the time they’ve made a circuit of the campus, peeking into auditoriums and cafeterias and running into classmates of Blaine’s, all of whom wave and say hi and shake Kurt’s hand when Blaine introduces him, Kurt knows.

“It’s _happy,_ ” he says, as they walk back to the station. “I see why you came.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything, just knocks his shoulder gently as the bus rounds the corner.

42.  
His first evening there, Kurt stays mostly in the background, happy to stay out of the way and just watch as Blaine tries to cook with his housemates. There’s an ease and a brightness to him that had been missing in New York, that hadn’t even been there in Ohio. As much as he misses him Kurt is glad Blaine has found a place here, would never wish discontent or unhappiness on him.

Still, it’s a little weird, to be here, in Blaine’s space, and for there to not be a place for him. As a friend, certainly, but there’s no special spot for him at Blaine’s side as he tries to stir pasta sauce without spattering it. He had felt it first when Blaine had met him at the airport, and there had been an awkward moment of hesitation as they both stepped forward for a hug, and then had stopped, and stepped back. Blaine had laughed at both of them, and had pulled Kurt forward into a rib-squeezing hug anyway, but it’s a moment of hesitation Kurt remembers as he tries to decide whether he should go help with dinner. It doesn’t change what he actually does, of however, which is, of course, helping, because if Blaine doesn’t stop doing that right now he will _stain his shirt_.

 

43.  
“Pesto chicken pasta, and you forgot the chicken.” Kurt stands with his hands on his hips, watching Blaine root through the refrigerator.

“Um.”

“It’s fine, I guess it doesn’t need the chicken anyway. David, did you find the pesto?” He turns to where David’s standing on a stool and rummaging through the cupboard above the stove.

“You know, Kurt, I really thought your control-freakness was something you were going to grow out of.”

“No such luck,” Kurt crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the counter.

David pulls his head out of the cupboard and carefully jumps down. “No such luck on the pesto, either. Tyler!” he shouts, and their third housemate leans into the kitchen on his way upstairs.

“Yo?”

“Did you get pesto last time you went to the store?”

Tyler seems to consider that for a moment. “No, dude.” He disappears around the corner, and Kurt can hear his footsteps on the stairs.

“Seriously, last time we send him shopping,” David mutters.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kurt says, rummaging through their spice rack. “I can save it. Babe, where’s your olive oil?”

“Cupboard over the dishwasher,” Blaine answers, finally giving up and shutting the refrigerator.

Dinner, in the end, is linguine with sun-dried tomatoes and basil and olive oil, and carrots that Kurt finds in the back of the fridge and cuts up because, “God, don’t you boys ever eat vegetables?”

Tyler eats quickly and disappears upstairs again, leaving David and Blaine and Kurt to reminisce over the Warblers’ glory days.

“You sound like old men. Who wants dessert?” David asks as they rehash Regionals 2011, standing up and clearing the pasta bowl and the jug of milk.

“Hey, don’t be bitter. They had _original songs_ ,” Kurt says to his retreating back. Blaine knocks his foot against Kurt’s and grins.

“Yeah,” Blaine adds, not moving his foot, and Kurt nudges his toes against his ankle. “See what some creativity can get you, David?”

“Oh, screw you both, that was Wes, not me.”

“How is Wes?” Kurt asks, and Blaine smiles and leans back to hand David his bowl.

“Really good. He got a scholarship to Eastman, did you know? He’s in New York, now, probably just a few hours from you.” He still hasn’t moved his foot.

“Oh, good for him. I should get him down to the city.”

“Warbler reunion!” David fist-pumps and comes back to the table for the rest of the carrots.

Kurt rolls his eyes. “As long as you don’t all try to crash at my apartment, I’m in.”

David and Blaine give him matching grins. “Awesome!”

44.  
Kurt’s not sure when he falls asleep, but he wakes to a gentle hand shaking his shoulder.

“Wake up, Kurt, time for bed,” Blaine says quietly, and Kurt blinks his eyes open to see him crouching in front of the couch.

“Mm, no, tired.” Kurt frowns and tries to burrow further into the cushions, but they don’t yield.

Blaine chuckles softly. “Come on, babe, that couch isn’t big enough for you. And if you stay there David will wake you up in about three hours when he starts his workout routine.”

Kurt grudgingly sits up, jaw almost cracking with a yawn. Blaine helps him with a hand under his elbow, and follows close behind him as Kurt makes his way slowly up the stairs to his room. Blaine’s already made up the futon on his floor, and Kurt doesn’t bother to peel back the covers before he falls face-first into it. “Mmmmmm.”

Blaine shuts the door behind himself quietly, and flicks on the bedside light. “Better?”

“Mmhmmm.”

Kurt can track Blaine’s movements by his footsteps, and knows he’s by the futon when he feels hands on his shoes, undoing the laces and sliding them carefully off. Then there’s a soft rustle, and a blanket - soft, fleecy, Kurt remembers it from winter weekends in Lima, and cool autumn evenings in Blaine’s dorm - falls across his shoulders. He turns his head and nuzzles into it, the warm familiarity of it, and the quiet sounds of Blaine standing again and crawling into his own bed a soft comfort in this strange room in a strange place.

45.  
“That was _amazing_.” Kurt feels like he’s glowing as he slides into the passenger seat of Blaine’s car.

Blaine grins and pulls on his seatbelt. “Wasn’t it? Told you the guys were good.” He reaches for his iPod and turns it on before he starts the car and puts a hand on Kurt’s headrest to turn around and check the parking lot before he pulls out of the space. “These are some recordings they did last year,” he explains, as the music starts up. “They’ve developed since then, but the energy is still great.”

They roll the windows down once they get onto the road, and Kurt’s skin and his brain feel like they’re going to split from overstimulation. There’s the buzzing adrenaline high of a live performance, the sheer excitement and fun of being in California, the lingering too-hot closeness of the overcrowded bar where Blaine’s friends had played, overtaken now by the cool damp night air rolling in through the windows, destroying his hair and sending Blaine’s curls waving madly. Kurt feels sparklingly alive with it but it’s almost too much. Blaine seems to feel it, too, fidgeting a little in his seat when they stop at a red light, flexing his hands on the wheel out of time with the beat in the speakers.

Abruptly Kurt leans forward, hand on the dial. “Okay if I turn this off? They really are amazing, but...”

“It’s a lot, yeah.” Blaine’s fingers dance out a rhythm on the gear shift. Kurt hits pause and when he pulls his hard back his fingers slide over the back of Blaine’s hand, and he can feel the tendons and the fine bones freeze and then flex under the touch.

Kurt’s thumb brushes the back of Blaine’s hand again before he pulls it back into his lap. “Did you say the guys were going to be out late tonight?”

There’s a beat before Blaine answers, but when he does, his voice is low. “Yeah. They probably won’t be back til morning, even if they don’t stay with Mandy and Lacey.”

“Yeah.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything more, and neither does Blaine, but when the light turns green he hits the gas a little bit harder.

46.  
Blaine kisses him on the landing, where the stairs turn a corner on their way up.

In the hallway upstairs Kurt pushes him against the wall beside Blaine’s bedroom door.  
Blaine fumbles for the doorknob and pulls Kurt into his room with one hand still on the back of his neck. When Blaine’s knees hit the bed he crawls backwards onto it, panting into Kurt’s mouth as his hands go to work on Kurt’s buttons.

“God, Kurt,” he breathes as he pushes the shirt off of Kurt’s shoulder, and his hands on Kurt’s chest are broad and warm and perfect. Kurt groans and shuffles onto the bed after him, knee to knee and jostling for space.

Blaine twists to reach his bedside drawer as Kurt finally gets his jeans unfastened. He sinks his hands under the waistband to grab and pull at Blaine’s ass, and Blaine loses his balance and tumbles over. Kurt lands on his elbows over him, and kisses him, hard and deep, before he begins to shimmy down.

“No,” Blaine says, and his voice is ragged and already wrecked. “Up here.” He pulls Kurt up by the elbows until he’s laid out on top of Blaine, and Kurt buries his face in Blaine’s neck at the feel of them pressed together. Blaine urges Kurt’s hips up so he can slide his pants and their underwear off, and then they’re both naked, sliding and rutting together until Kurt can get enough of his brain to get ahold of the lube Blaine’s dropped on the mattress.

Blaine is hot, and slick, around his fingers, and Kurt thinks he could almost come from that, the feeling of Blaine around him, it’s been so long and Blaine feels so good, but he wants more. So he pushes, faster maybe than he should, and stretches Blaine open.

He can’t get the condom open with his slicked fingers, never could, so Blaine does it for him and slides it down the length of his cock and then leans back, eyes glittering up at him in the dark while Kurt grabs his hips and pushes in.

It’s not going to take long, not long at all, and Blaine’s breaths are already coming high and fast as Kurt thrusts and twists and presses. His fingers find Blaine’s cock, big and dark in the dim, and when he strokes it with his slicked hands Blaine sags back into the pillows with a groan. It’s only a handful of strokes before he’s coming, and Kurt follows with a choked whimper, his hips fucking into Blaine while his spine bowing under the pleasure and his vision whites out.

47.  
Kurt wakes up to the sound of Blaine’s alarm. He buries his head under the covers and groans, and the blankets tug around him as Blaine rolls out of bed to silence his phone.

When the terrible blaring klaxon of wakefulness is finally silenced, Kurt throws the covers back and looks up at Blaine balefully. “An alarm? On your week off? Really?”

Blaine lifts a shoulder and sets the phone on his dresser “I was going to make breakfast,” he says, moving to the dresser and pulling out a pair of boxers. He steps into them, then pulls two t-shirts out of his drawer and contemplates them.

Kurt sits up cross-legged on the bed. “The blue one,” he says. Blaine returns the green one to the drawer and pulls the other over his head. He says something, but it’s muffled in the fabric and Kurt can’t make it out.

“What?”

Blaine’s head emerges. “Bacon or sausage?”

“Real or fake?”

Blaine grins. “What do you think?”

Kurt grins and leans over the edge of the bed to snag his own clothes. “Definitely bacon.”

“Hey,” Blaine says quietly, when Kurt gathers his shirt up in his hands to pull back on. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Kurt shrugs his t-shirt over his head. “Are...you?”

“Of course.” Kurt looks up cautiously at Blaine’s tone, but his smile is genuine. “Now. Breakfast?”

48.  
The back of Kurt’s eyeballs feel scratchy in the way that means he’ll probably end up crashing on the couch and sleeping for a few hours this afternoon, but Blaine opens the window in the kitchen and the cool morning air feels good so he doesn’t want to go back to sleep just yet. Kurt washes blueberries while Blaine defrosts bacon in the microwave, and as Kurt pours another container into the colander Blaine shuts the microwave door with his elbow and says, “Do we need to talk?”

Kurt swirls a hand through the berries as the water streams over them. “I don’t think so?” He looks over his shoulder, where Blaine is watching him as he forks pieces of bacon onto a frying pan. “Do you?”

“I really am fine,” Blaine comes and sets the plate in the other side of the sink. “But going forward - do you want to keep - you know?”

“Be fuck buddies?” Kurt turns off the water and turns to face Blaine.

“I was going to be nice and say friends-with-benefits,” he says with a nervous smile.

Kurt takes a moment to think about it, while Blaine thumbs through the cookbook. He watches Blaine, the easy movements of his hands on the pages, remembers the easy way Blaine’s hands had taken him apart last night, thinks of the easy way they fit into each other’s lives... when they are actually close, and together. “I don’t know,” Kurt says finally, when Blaine has turned away to get the flour out of the cupboard. “It doesn’t really make sense, does it.”

Blaine doesn’t ask what Kurt means, though he wishes he would, because then maybe Kurt could convince himself he was wrong. But Kurt doesn’t think he’s wrong, and Blaine just glances up at Kurt as he measures flour into a measuring cup, because he already knows what Kurt is going to say.

“Because, if we were going to do... that. Then we could only be...together, when we actually were... together. If we could have made it work in the meantime we would have. Already, I mean.”

Blaine looks at Kurt so intently for such a long moment that Kurt can feel his face heating, but then all he does is fold the top of the bag back down with floury fingers, and nod. “I think you’re right,” Blaine says, and snags a blueberry from the colander, and flicks it at Kurt with a grin. Just like that, the mood shifts again, and it’s a relief. “Come on, now. Pancakes!”

49.  
Kurt’s not sure who, exactly, Elliot is - somebody from school, maybe, or Blaine’s job, or the band - but Kurt is sure that he doesn’t like the way he looks at Blaine, with an interested eye and a half-possessive smile as Blaine welcomes him into the house with a one-armed guy-hug. He is also _very_ sure that he doesn’t like the way Elliot’s eyes follow him and Blaine around the room, the way they narrow when Kurt puts a hand to the small of Blaine’s back and leans close to his ear to ask over the thump of music where the extra cups are, or the way they linger on the bruise at Blaine’s neck, hidden by his shirt collar except when when he stretches or crouches down to help Marty with the stereo cables.

Elliot finally corners Kurt when he goes out to the garage for more ice. “Dude, what are you doing?” he demands, and Kurt reflexively flinches back.

“What are you talking about?”

“With Blaine. He told me you guys broke up. He said he wasn’t seeing anybody. Blaine’s a good guy, he doesn’t lie about that stuff.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Kurt asks again, because he doesn’t know Elliot and also doesn’t like how much he apparently knows about him, and Blaine.

“Come on, Kurt. Blaine’s a _great_ guy. I’ve liked him since I met him, and I was just starting to make some progress with him. We were supposed to go out together on Thursday, til he cancelled to go to the show with you.”

Kurt has absolutely no idea what to make of this. “I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding it at all, not even trying to. “I’m not here to cater to your relationship needs.” Whatever isn’t going on between him and Blaine is no one else’s business, especially not some guy with blonde highlights and a West Coast smoothness to his voice.

“No? So you’re just going to come here for a week, fuck with Blaine’s brain” - not just his brain, Kurt thinks, which isn’t really a thought that’s helping here - “and leave for New York again?”

“I - ” Anger flares, and Kurt pulls his shoulders back, ready to snark back, but Elliot beats him to the punch.

“This is going to mess him up. And if you were going to be around for the fallout, you’d still be together, wouldn’t you?”

“It is _none_ of your business what -”

“Just, think about what you’re doing, okay? Blaine deserves better than that.”

“I cannot _believe_ you would - ” Kurt’s voice is shrill in his own ears.

The door to the house swings open, and of course it’s Blaine. “Kurt? Oh. Elliot.” Blaine looks between the two of them, and Kurt can see him taking them in, Elliot pressed forward into Kurt’s space, Kurt’s back ramrod-straight, the color high in both of their faces. “Everything okay?”

Elliot’s the first to pull back, rolling his shoulders into an easier tilt. “Just fine.” He gives Kurt one last dark parting look before pushing past Kurt into the house, and Kurt can feel Blaine’s eyes on the back of his neck as he bends to pick up the bag of ice.

“Kurt?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kurt tells him, and doesn’t look at Blaine, just lets him hold the door open, as he carries the ice inside.

50.

The sun is setting into the bay beyond the traffic as Blaine walks him into the airport, knuckles brushing the back of Kurt’s hand as they walk. At the security checkpoint Blaine pulls Kurt into a hug, and holds him there for too long as PA announcements blare overhead and travellers bustle past them.

When he pulls back there’s a question in his eyes, like he wants to ask Kurt something but is too afraid of the answer to risk it. Kurt thinks he knows what it is but can’t help him; his answer isn’t going to be what Blaine wants it to be, and he knows that Blaine knows that. So he just kisses Blaine on the cheek and gives him one last hug, and tells him “Thank you for _everything_ ” before he slings his carry-on over his shoulder and walks towards the metal detectors.

 

**Chaos and Sunshine**

51.  
The Lima Bean had seemed like a good idea at the time - close to all of their houses, air conditioned, familiar. But Kurt had forgotten how small it actually was, how busy on a hot Thursday afternoon, the only coffee shop open in this part of town.

Tina breezes in, shopping bag in hand, and hugs Kurt and kisses his cheek before she plunks into the seat next to him. “Can you believe this heat?” She sweeps her bangs off her forehead and leans an elbow on the table. “The air conditioning in my car gave out, too. And it’s only May!”

Kurt just shakes the ice around in his coffee, amused. “If you bring it by the shop I can take a look at it if you want.”

“Oh, would you? You’re an angel. Hey! There they are.” Kurt looks up at the door to see Mercedes pulling the door open, Blaine right behind her. Kurt lifts a hand to wave and Blaine nods back, looking a little unsure of his welcome.

“Here, you can - ” Tina stands, to offer him her seat next to Kurt, but he just waves an awkward hand and hugs her and slides in across from her. Tina sits back down, shooting Kurt an apologetic look. Mercedes is looking between them, apparently not sure what to say or do, so Kurt grabs her arm and tugs her down into the seat across from him.

“So!” he says, forcing the brightness. “How’s Ohio?”

52.  
 _”It’s the bitch of living!”_ Kurt, socked, tries to spin on his carpet and ends up with the prickle of rugburn threatening the balls of his feet. It’s not the first time he’s been alone in the house, but it’s the first time he’s been alone in the house that he’s felt like cleaning out his closet, so the door is open, his speakers are cranked up, and _Spring Awakening_ is blaring over his laptop speakers.

He reaches for another sweater and his knuckles brush across something too-soft and too-familiar, and instead of the sweater his fingers close around a faded sweatshirt whose cuffs are going raggedy and whose drawstring has been missing for years.

It’s habit to raise it to his nose, but it doesn’t smell like Blaine anymore, just his own detergent and closet and the slightly musty scent of laundry that’s been hanging in a cramped space too long. The texture he remembers, though, remembers the warm press of fabric over Blaine’s shoulder when he hugged Kurt and Kurt buried his face in it, remembers wearing it himself on cold winter mornings with puppyish affection when he missed Blaine, so far away in Westerville the few times they couldn’t get together on weekends when Blaine was still at Dalton and Kurt wasn’t.

He should give it back, he knows, because it is Blaine’s and they never really did have a proper return-each-other’s-things encounter, and so he folds it neatly and sets it on the edge of his vanity. He’ll text Blaine about it. Later.

53.  
Blaine: “Puck!”

Tina: “Kurt!”

Blaine: “Quinn!”

Tina: “No fair, you got Quinn last time!”

Blaine, grinning: “Shoulda called her first then!”

The squabble over picking teams for water polo (seven former New Directions, two former Warblers, a basketball hoop, a hula hoop tied to the pool deck and a volleyball) ends in a fit of splashing and no one really wants to play, anyway, not when there is disorganized chaos and chlorine and sunshine to revel in.

Kurt stays at his end of the pool (“his” defined as where Rachel and Mercedes are, shrieking when the boys get too close), and tries not to stare at the way the muscles in Blaine’s shoulders move as he slaps a sheet of water at Mike or think about burying his face in the sun-warmed skin of the crook of Blaine’s neck.

Kurt does his best: he laughs, he jokes, he lets himself be hoisted up on Sam’s shoulders to battle Blaine, on Puck’s, and doesn’t hold back and _doesn’t_ , actually doesn’t, hold on too long or grip too tight on his arms in the epic battle of chicken that follows. He feels the pang of annoyance at a petty loss, not the sweet joy of shared play, when Blaine knocks him off balance and Kurt topples into the water.

It would be easier, though, if he could emerge from the dunking without seeing Blaine smiling at him over Sam’s shoulder and seeing in that smile how much Blaine had liked tugging a hand through Kurt’s hair last summer, when they’d caught themselves alone in Santana’s pool for ten blessed minutes. Blaine hand pinned him between his hips and the wall of the pool and had held him there, hands tangled in Kurt’s dripping hair while he kissed Kurt, lips and tongue and teeth and forget the water, _that_ is what drowning felt like, in the best way...

Another failed game of water pool, Sam breaking out his super soakers, Puck making bad jokes and then blasting the girls in their huddle and Kurt can hip-check Blaine and take his water gun from his startled hands without it feeling dangerous at all.

But it would be easier, too, if Kurt could climb out of the pool without feeling Blaine’s eyes on his back, and look back over his shoulder without seeing Blaine staring, water reflecting bright on his skin and in his eyes. When Kurt meets his gaze this time Blaine doesn’t smile and doesn’t look away, just watches Kurt steadily until Kurt has to turn around and retreat with his towel to the shade.

54.  
“So his name’s Kevin, right, and he’s like, totally cute - ”

“Sam, you’re _sure_ you’re not gay?”

“What?”

Kurt shakes his head. “Nevermind. You were saying. Kevin?”

“Yeah, so, he’s working with me at the marina this summer, and he’s going to Tiff or some place in New York - ”

“Tisch?”

“Tisch, right. And I think he’d totally be your type. I got his number for you, if you want.”

“You what?” Kurt manages not to spit-take on his iced coffee, but it’s a narrow escape.

“His number. So you can, you know, call him and go out or something.”

Sam’s enduring earnestness, not to mention his genuine sweetness, never ceases to surprise Kurt, though he knows it’s a discredit to himself that he doesn’t expect it, not when Sam has never been anything but kind to him.

“Um, sure, that would be great. Thank you, Sam, really,” Kurt says as Sam takes Kurt’s phone off the table between them and taps a number into it.

“It’s no problem, man. I figure us dudes have to stick together - love’s a bitch, but every chance helps, right?”

Love’s a bitch, but every chance helps. Kurt could drink to that.

“Thank you,” he says again, when Sam drops him off at home with a hug across the console and a wave from the driveway.

He waits until Sam’s car has pulled away around the corner again to delete the new number off his phone.

55.  
It’s Tuesday and Kurt’s day off from the shop, but he wakes up when the garage door closes as his dad leaves and can’t get back to sleep. The summer sun is bright but morning-gentle and Kurt might feel nervous, but he doesn’t. He makes his bed, showers, brushes his teeth but sweeps his bangs off his forehead and doesn’t dry his hair.

There’s a breeze blowing in his open windows that raises goosebumps as he dresses, and he can feel the damp between his shoulder blades that he missed drying off as he texts Blaine.

_Have secured Les Mis on DVD. Come over and wallow with me?_

The reply comes a few minutes later: _I *knew* you were incapable of sleeping in. Give me 45 to get my sorry sleeping ass out of bed and halfway presentable._

Kurt considers replies to that, dismisses them all, and just types back, _Good. Front door is unlocked - see you soon_.

56.  
Halfway through the first act, Kurt knows Blaine isn’t watching anymore. His fingers are pinching at his shorts, creasing the hem and watching his fingers instead of the screen. It’s automatic to reach over and folds his fingers over Blaine’s hand, _stop fidgeting._ But Blaine weaves their fingers together and doesn’t let Kurt pull away when he tries to, and Kurt’s pulse stutters in his wrist when Blaine strokes his thumb over the skin there, and then Blaine is tipping his chin up with his other hand and kissing him, hard and almost desperate.

Kurt groans into his mouth and slides a knee over Blaine’s lap to straddle him, and Blaine drops his hand to cup the back of his neck, trading pulse for pulse and sliding a palm over the side of Kurt’s throat. Kurt’s not thinking, doesn’t let himself think beyond the warmth of Blaine’s body under him and the slick heat of his mouth as it opens under his. He winds a hand in Blaine’s hair and tugs a little, baring Blaine’s throat so he can kiss and nip his way down to the collar of his shirt, and uses his other to pull Blaine’s collar aside to mouth at his collarbone.

“Kurt -” Blaine’s voice is urgent, breathy so close to his ear. “Kurt we -”

And that’s when the key scrapes in the lock.

Kurt is up and off Blaine’s lap like a shot, and dives for the open DVD case on the floor, trying to look like he’d been doing anything but putting his tongue down his ex-boyfriend’s throat on his father’s couch. He can hear the springs shift and Blaine crosses his legs and tries to smooth out his shirt before Kurt’s dad walks in.

“Hi, Kurt,” Burt says, grocery bags swinging from his arms, and Kurt looks over his shoulder and tries to look innocent and knows how badly they both are failing. His dad has walked in on them more times than Kurt wants to count, of course he knows what they were doing. “...hi, Blaine.”

“Hi,” Blaine says, and his voice is too small, and his eyes dart to Kurt.

“Good to see you,” and if Burt is frowning at least he sounds sincere. “Have a good semester?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Glad to hear it. Hey, Kurt, come help me with these?”

“Sure, Dad.” Kurt scrambles to his feet, knocking the DVD case aside in the process, and as he follows his dad into the kitchen he can see Blaine drop his head into the palm of his hand, and see his back sag as he lets out a too-heavy sigh.

57.  
Burt makes them (asks them to, really, but they all know it’s not really a request) help with lunch, and Kurt keeps his head down and slices chicken for sandwiches while Blaine keeps his head down and washes lettuce for salads.

He doesn’t know why he feels so guilty, now. It’s not just getting caught by his dad - embarrassing, yes, but it had happened dozens of times in high school, and as embarrassing as it had occasionally been, getting walked in on by your parents and siblings is a normal part of high school relationships. And it’s not the messing around with Blaine, not when they’d done so much more in California. Kurt watches the still-red back of Blaine’s neck as he bends over the cutting board, and it hits him why he does feel guilty. In high school, making out was something they were _supposed_ to do, and in California...

In California, they hadn’t decided not to do this anymore. Well, not until after they’d done it, anyway. What had one brief hookup been? People had one-night stands all the time, and that’s all they had done together, though Kurt can feel his father’s warning that _It’s doing something to your heart, Kurt,_ uncomfortably in the back of his mind. But somehow in the last half-hour they had crossed a line, kissing and touching and reaching for _more_ when they weren’t supposed to anymore, and his dad knows it, and now they know it, too.

Kurt sets down the knife, washes his hands. That was it, he promises himself. It shouldn’t have happened before, and it won’t happen again.

58.  
“Iced coffee and - ” Blaine turns to Kurt and raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Vanilla chai, please,” Kurt finishes, adjusting the strap of his bag.

“Want to stay here, or?” Blaine asks, when they’ve collected their drinks. Sitting at home under the watchful eyes of Kurt’s dad was too awkward, so they’d left as soon after lunch as they could. Kurt looks around the crowded coffeeshop; considers the chances of running into other friends.

“Can we drive around for a little bit?”

Blaine grabs straws for them both on his way out the door. “Sure.”

They drive to the park and sit there with the engine off and the radio running, watching the ducks in the little pond, not saying much of anything. Kurt fiddles with his straw while Blaine finishes his coffee and sets the empty cup back in the cupholder

“Kurt?”

Kurt knows the tone in Blaine’s voice, and it’s the last thing he wants to hear right now. “Mm?” he tries for non-commital, and freezes when Blaine’s hand comes to rest on his leg.

Kurt flinches away. “What are you doing?”

Blaine snatches his hand back as if he’s been burned, his eyes big and brown and _hurt_ and part of Kurt, young and lonely and wanting, wants to give in but makes himself not. It’s so hard.

“I thought you - I thought we - ” Blaine begins, but he wilts under Kurt’s glare. “I thought you wanted this. I thought we could do this when we were together,” he finishes, uncertain, but with the barest hint of frustration.

“No, I said we _can’t_ do this, because we’re _not_ together.”

Blaine’s hurt is shifting rapidly to anger. “We _are_ together now! We will be all summer. We did... _that_... in California, why can’t we do it now?”

“We _shouldn’t_ have in California and you know it,” Kurt snaps, and Blaine’s whole body draws back as far as his seat allows it, because neither of them have voiced that before. “If we were going to be together, we would _be together,_ Blaine, not just fuck buddies.”

“You were the one who suggested - !”

“I thought you respected me more than that.” Kurt reaches for the door handle, but Blaine grabs his wrist before he can get out.

“Kurt.” There’s an angry hectic flush on his cheeks, but his eyes are wide and so dark, and Kurt hesitates. “If I thought you would let us be together I would want us to _be together_. But you won’t.”

Kurt waits a beat and wants him to ask, doesn’t know what his answer will be but is so desperate for him to _ask_. Blaine doesn’t, though, just looks at him with those too-wide eyes.

Kurt twists his arm out of Blaine’s grasp with a yank.

“Kurt -”

“Goodbye, Blaine.”

“Kurt!”

Kurt throws his hands down, and almost doesn’t recognize his own voice, strained and angry and desperately sad, too much for vocal chords to contain. “I don’t think this is going to work, Blaine.”

59.  
Puck blinks at him when Kurt asks for a second beer. “Really, dude?”

“Puck, you’ve been trying to get me to drink for years, you’re really going to question it now?”

“Whatever, man.” Puck passes him a dripping bottle from the cooler. “Do I need to beat him up?”

Kurt looks up at Puck as he tries to twist the cap off. “What? Who?” The bottle is slippery and he can’t get a good grip, and the metal edges dig into his skin. “Ow,” he shakes out his hand.

“Blaine.” Puck takes the bottle back from him and twists the cap of with practiced ease before handing it back. “You’ve been giving him the stink-eye all night, and he’s been ignoring you.”

“Thanks,” Kurt say. He takes a sip, and tries not to make a face at the tasteless bitterness of it. “But don’t worry about it.”

“Whatever,” Puck shrugs. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

Mercedes asks the same thing - without the offer of physical violence, which Kurt appreciates - and Kurt can see Tina with her head back next to Blaine’s, turning away when Kurt meets her eye briefly. Wonderful.

Blaine leaves first, and Kurt is irrationally angry as he watches his car pull out of the driveway because _Kurt_ should have been the bigger man, to leave before things got ugly, and now he’s surrounded by a press of friends who want to know what happened, and Kurt is torn between wanting to tell them, wanting to curse Blaine and make them hate him and make him _pay_ for doing this to Kurt, for tempting and confusing and wooing Kurt all at the same time, and never wanting to see or speak to him ever again.

He settles for leaving not long after, coming home when it’s still light out, and it feels odd to shower and get into bed while orange still glows in the western sky but he does anyway. If he’s going to be with his wretched thoughts, at least here he can be alone with them.

60.  
The airport is quiet; not many people are flying out at this late at night, but the weird-timed flights are cheaper, so here Kurt is.

His phone is in his lap, and his fingers twitch as he scrolls through the old texts and pictures, emails and calendar reminders. Overhead, the PA crackles to life.

_”Flight 4972 to LaGuardia boarding now at gate six. Now boarding zones one and two. If you are in zones one and two please...”_

His thumb hovers over “contacts” as the voice drones on, and slides the list down, just a few names from the top.

_”Now boarding zone three. Zone three, please proceed to the gate at this time.”_

His phone chirps up at him. _Are you sure you want to delete this contact?_

Kurt slings his bag over his folder and joins the line, phone still in hand. The girl two spaces ahead of him in line is showing her boarding pass to the attendant when he presses _yes_ , and flips hastily to his e-pass.

The attendant scans his screen, waves him through, and Kurt follows the line down the jetway. At his seat, he stores his bag in the overhead compartment and sits down. His phone blinks balefully up at him before he shuts it off. _Blaine deleted as contact_.


	3. One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson 3/3

**A Silence**

61.  
“Home sweet home!” Kurt throws his arms wide in the middle of the living room.

Alex hugs him one-armed around the waist as she passes with a crateload of books. “Good to be back in the Big Apple?”

“You have no idea.” Kurt props the door of his room open to get better air circulation from the window AC unit in the living room. “This is going to be the Year of Kurt. _Songs_ are going to be written about this year.”

“Kurt Hummel, taking the world by storm?”

“Exactly,” he grins at her, and she smiles back, until there’s a thump and a curse from the kitchen, and they both go to investigate what James dropped on his foot this time.

62.  
“Hey, Jack.” Kurt leans his elbows on the counter. “Ready to go?”

Jack looks up at him from where he’s hanging up his apron and smiles. “Always. Just let me grab my jacket.”

The sun is setting as they step out onto the street, and the October breeze is turning chill. Kurt shivers, but shakes his head when Jack offers him his coat.

“It’s not like you to underdress. Since when did fall catch Kurt Hummel unlayered?”

Kurt looks at his shoes and smiles ruefully. “Rachel reset the default location on my weather app last weekend, apparently. And for the last half week apparently New York’s weather has aligned well enough with Fort Benning’s, but today it took a turn colder.”

“And you don’t want a coat because...?”

“This way I can get more sympathy points when I yell at her for it.”

“Ahh, of course. Well, take this, at least.” Jack loops his own scarf around Kurt’s neck, a few extra times than necessary, and Kurt smiles at him and tugs the coils of wool down from his mouth so he can speak. “Thanks. Unnecessary, but, thanks.”

“Anytime,” Jack bumps shoulders with Kurt, and Kurt takes a breath and squares his own. Now is as good a time as any to take the plunge.

“So, I’ve been wondering,” he says, and tries not to blush when Jack looks over at him curiously. “Would you want to maybe... go out? Sometime?”

A slow smile is spreading across Jack’s face. “Like, on a date?” he arches an eyebrow.

Kurt gives him an unimpressed look. “Yes, Jack, on a _date_.”

Jack’s smile beams wide. “Kurt, I would love to. Just name the time.”

“Saturday, at eight?” Kurt doesn’t let himself fidget with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll pick you up.”

“I shall be ready,” Jack says, sweeping a bow, and Kurt laughs, and then smiles the whole rest of the walk back.

63.  
“So, who asked out who?”

“Hm?” Kurt looks up from his closet to see James standing in his doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He gestures at the clothes laid out on Kurt’s bed. “Your date. Did you ask him, or did he ask you?”

Kurt frowns and puts back a brown sweater, pulls out a gray jacket and adds it to the candidates on the bed. “I asked him. Why?” he asks, as James whoops and comes in to perch on the end of the bed.

“No reason.” James shuffles his shoulders.

“Did you and Rachel have a bet going?”

“No...”

“James!”

His roommate grins wide. “Of course we did. Have since the beginning of the semester. I won, by the way.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Kurt deadpans, then shoos him off the bed. “Out!”

Once he’s alone again Kurt returns to contemplating his wardrobe. It’s been ages since he’s spent this much time on an outfit, and even longer since he dressed for a date, and he’s never dressed for a date in New York. There’s definitely a thrill to it, and Kurt hums at the pleasant buzz of excitement in his stomach as he compares scarves and tries to find shoes to match.

64.  
“I had a really great time tonight,” Jack says, and Kurt laughs into his hand. “What? I did!”

“No, I know, I did too. But that’s _such_ a line.” Kurt has to laugh more at Jack’s wounded pout.

“Well, you’re the creative one,” Jack reaches a hand to brush over Kurt’s brooch, and Kurt tries not to let his breath catch at the touch. “I’m just the dumb pretty one.”

“We should do this again sometime,” Kurt ventures, when the silence stretches out too long and he doesn’t know what to do with the way Jack is looking at, him.

“We should,” Jack agrees, and his hand moves from Kurt’s breast pocket, up to his shoulder, and tugs him forward gently. “But first we should do this.”

And Jack kisses him, there on the sidewalk in front of Kurt’s apartment, and his mouth is warm and his hands are solid on Kurt’s arms, and before he can stop himself Kurt’s wrapping his arms around Jack’s waist and pulling him closer, opening his mouth to let him in.

When they finally break apart there’s color high on Jack’s cheeks and Kurt’s breath is heavy in his lungs. He feels giddy, like flying, and can’t help darting in to press another light kiss to the corner of Jack’s mouth. Jack smiles against his mouth and holds him there, and it’s another long moment before they pull back again, Jack’s cheeks redder and Kurt’s breath deeper even than before. “Thanks for tonight,” Jack says, and he sounds a little breathless, too.

All Kurt can do is grin and say “Anytime.” He sounds more put-together than he currently feels, because he kind of feels like he’s falling apart. Jack darts in to kiss him one more time and then walks away backwards down the street, grinning and giving one last wave before he has to round the corner.

As Kurt is walking up the stairs to his floor, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_Next Friday, eight. I’ll pick you up ;)_

Kurt holds his phone to his chest and sighs happily before he replies.

_It’s a date_

65.  
“Who’s that?” Kurt asks with a raised eyebrow as Rachel interrupts their conversation for a third time to answer a text.

“Oh,” Rachel looks up, and actually looks guilty for once, which is never a good sign. “Um. No one.”

“Dan?” Kurt asks; tall-and-silent hasn’t made an appearance at any of their functions in a while, but Rachel hasn’t talked about anyone else, either.

Rachel takes a deep breath and taps “mute” on her phone before sliding it back in her purse. “No. Actually, it was Blaine.”

Kurt keeps his face a study in neutrality. “Oh? How is he?”

Rachel looks like she’s going to hedge, and it’s a little annoying, that his best friends don’t trust him to be over his ex yet, even when he’s sworn up and down that he is, even when he’s dating someone new.

“Good,” she finally settles on saying. “He’s doing really well this semester and is looking for a community kid’s choir he can volunteer with before he does his student teaching next year. I was just telling him I’d ask my dads if they knew anything likely in his area.”

“Oh.” Kurt takes a sip of his coffee to collect his thoughts; why does he even _have_ thoughts? Blaine is an ex, and an old classmate. He wishes him well the same way he wishes Sam well, or Finn. “Good for him.”

Rachel is still watching him carefully. “I have some videos from his last performance,” she offers tentatively. “If you wanted to see. He really is doing very well.”

“Sure,” Kurt shrugs, because there is no reason not to; no reason at all his stomach should be tightening in anticipation - or is it dread?

“Okay,” Rachel says, and she still looks a little uncertain, so he puts his cup down and makes himself smile at her.

“Us McKinleyites have to keep supporting each other, right?”

Rachel’s smile comes relieved. “Yes. Of course. I’ll forward them to you once I get home tonight. Now, where were we?”

Kurt reaches for a napkin to wipe off a drip on the table, and is more than happy to return to Rachel’s happy gossip about their other former McKinleyites.

66.  
It’s stupid, when Central Park is so big, to associate it _all_ with something so far in the past, but he does. He’s also starting to run out of excuses as to why he doesn’t want to take a walk there with Jack.

“Come on, Kurt, it’s _beautiful_ in the fall,” he wheedles, eyes pale and bright in the gray autumn overcast, and Kurt really can’t say no anymore.

Jack takes his hand as they wander the too-familiar paths, and Kurt squeezes his fingers as Jack tells him about all of his favorite places in the park. He regales Kurt with details of its planning and construction that only a civil-engineering student could care about, but his interest is infectious, and Kurt can’t help getting caught up in it, and he definitely likes watching the excited flush on his cheeks as Jack gets waxes poetic in a particularly detailed description of some footbridge.

But then they turn a corner on the path, and Kurt’s heart sinks. There’s no landmark here that screams out at him, and he wouldn’t even have known this place well enough to have tried to avoid it, but he _knows_ this place.

They’d come here, he and Blaine, during the one week Kurt’s freshman year that Blaine had been able to fly out. They’d had a picnic in the park one of the few days they’d managed to drag themselves out of bed before noon, and Kurt had spent the long lonely last few weeks of the spring semester clicking though the pictures they’d taken that afternoon. Blaine had pushed him up against a tree - that tree, the one right there, with the initials carved into the bark - and kissed him until Kurt couldn’t breathe.

“Hey,” Jack tugs on his hand, and Kurt realizes he’s stopped in the middle of the path. “Honey, you okay?”

“Oh,” Kurt blinks himself back into awareness of the present. “Yeah, I’m fine.” They’d made up stories about the people with the initials, EK and JG with a crude heart scratched around them. Kurt had wanted to add their own; Blaine hadn’t wanted to hurt the tree. Kurt pulls his scarf tighter with his free hand. “Do you mind if we head back? It’s getting cold.”

“Sure,” Jack says lightly, and turns them around to walk back the way they’d come. He still looks worried, though, and Kurt tightens his grip around his hand.

“I’m fine, really.”

As they reach the edge of the park, snow begins to fall.

67.  
Kurt flops back onto his bed with a frustrated groan. The bright eye of his laptop glares up at him, and he wishes it would do any good to glare back.

His skin feels tight, and his pants are definitely too tight, and Kurt has to finish a paper tonight and that is never going to happen in his current state. He thinks about calling Jack, but if Jack comes over then he’s not going to leave, and as much as Kurt wants to fall asleep snuggled up next to him it’s not going to help him finish anything on his to do list. He snaps open the button on his jeans.

He snakes a hand into under his underwear, petting at the skin there and trying to clear his mind. Why had he had to watch the videos Rachel had sent? All he’d wanted was something engaging to listen to while he’d sketched up his designs for the winter musical, something with energy. Blaine’s choir had seemed like a perfect choice.

Kurt’s fingers find hotter skin. His spine lights at the touch. He should have known Blaine would have had a solo, and even sitting at his desk, sketchpad in hand, Kurt hadn’t been able to focus on drawing, only the way he’d never been able to ignore Blaine’s voice.

Kurt wriggles his hips to get his jeans down and off, and with a better grip now he starts stroking. He’d been magnetic on that stage, Kurt can tell, and he knows the old jealousy, the one he’d lived with for six months last year knowing other people were with Blaine, knowing that other people got to see him and touch him and _sing_ with him while Kurt, who loved him best, was thousands of miles away.

He can still imagine his voice, though, not loud and bright and projected for a crowd, but warm and quiet and whispered in Kurt’s ear as his hands traced Kurt’s body, touching and soothing and exciting.

Kurt reaches for his bedside drawer and returns his hand, lube-slicked, to his cock. With the sliding frictionless drag it’s easier to imagine it’s someone else’s, easier for arousal to rise in his veins and tighten in his balls. Easier to imagine the slick-warm-slide is a mouth.

Kurt had watched Blaine singing in the grainy jumpy video and hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of it, the bright smile and the warm red lips that he would press into the crease of Kurt’s thigh while he stroked his fingers down, and under, and in...

Kurt comes with a sudden shocked gasp. It’s less a wash of pleasure, more of a sudden snap and release of tension. He lies with his hand on his own hip still wanting more, until he realizes what he’s done, and then he rolls over on his bed and buries his face in his pillow and groans. This is not what was supposed to happen tonight.

68.  
Kurt can hardly wait until Jack hangs up his coat to tell him. “I got the job!” he says, bouncing on his toes as Jack closes the closet door and turns to face him.

“You did! That’s amazing, Kurt!” Jack catches him up in a hug and kisses his cheek before pulling back to arm’s length. “When do you start?”

“Next Monday!”

“Monday? Wow,” the smile slips a little on Jack’s face. “How are you going to make it to your coffeeshop shifts too?”

Kurt puts a hand on Jack’s cheek. “I’m not going to be working there anymore. This is twenty hours a week - it’s not like I’m going to have the time.”

“Oh,” Jack looks disappointed. “I just - I’m going to miss working with you,” he says, and Kurt can almost understand.

“I know,” he says, “but we’ll still have nights and weekends and everything else in between.” He stands on his toes and kisses Jack quickly. “And now, speaking of nights...?”

Jack smiles, and takes his hand, and leads him down the hall.

69.  
“Oh, god, Kurt, you feel good.” Jack’s head is thrown back on his pillows as Kurt kisses down the side of his neck. Kurt shifts on the bed to get a better angle but kneels heavily on the button of a discarded pair of pants, his or Jack’s, he’s not sure, and kicks them off the side of the bed as he slides farther down Jack’s body.

His hand lingers at the waistband of Jack’s underwear. They’ve done this, before, the mostly-clothesless-making-out, but they’ve never done what Kurt thinks they’re about to do. Part of him thinks he should feel more nervous about that than he actually does; the rest of him is distracted with the smooth pale skin showing against the dark fabric.

He bites his lip as he draws the waistband down, not enough to show _everything_ , but Kurt thinks that maybe he’s not going to need everything, the smooth curve of Jack’s hip appearing under his fingertips is tease and satisfaction all at once, and he can’t help sliding down to kiss at the exposed skin. Jack whimpers something up above him, and Kurt nips at his hip and keeps petting at the soft skin stretched and hollowed over thin muscle and bone.

“Kurt, god, you’re killing me,” Jack’s voice comes low and hoarse above him, and Kurt ruts into the mattress as he finally pulls Jack’s underwear the rest of the way off and kicks his own down and off the bed to join their pants on the floor.

“You are so gorgeous,” he whispers into Jack’s mouth as he leans down to kiss him again, and feels the gust of breath as Jack laughs softly.

“Look who’s talking.” The brightness of Jack’s green isn’t what Kurt is used to in moments like this but he has no complaints, not when Jack is looking down his body like it’s actually worth looking at (and Kurt knows it _is,_ but external confirmation is never unwelcome) with eyes that are shining and eager. He skims his hands down Kurt’s side, and Kurt closes his own eyes and presses his forehead into the curve of Jack’s shoulder as Jack’s hand press and grip at his waist, and then lower, and lower.

70.  
“Well, when do you fly out?”

_”Wednesday after exams are done. When do you go home?”_

“Not til that Friday, I have some stuff I have to do at work.”

_”Aww, sorry honey. Do you want me to stick around for another couple of days? I can change my flight.”_

Kurt smiles into the phone. “No, it’s fine. Go spend quality time with your family so I can steal you after the holidays.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Kurt scooches his chair back from the table to stand up.

_”Yeah, speaking of that, what’s a good time for me to come out to Ohio?”_

“Anytime after New Year’s, really. We’re not an exciting bunch.” Kurt looks down to make sure his shirt is presentable before he flicks open the deadbolt. “Sorry, just a sec, I have to get -” he puts the phone to his shoulder as he pulls open the door.

Blaine is standing on the other side of it.

**My Place**

71.  
Blaine is standing in front of Kurt’s door.

Kurt stands, tinny sounds coming from the phone pressed to his shoulder, and actually does not know what to do with this information.

In front of him, Blaine shuffles from foot to foot. “Um. Hi.”

This information makes no sense.

Blaine shuffles again and just looks so _real_ that Kurt finally has to accept that this is happening. He picks up the phone again. “Sorry, can I call you back? Everything’s fine, I promise,” he assures Jack, and doesn’t wait for a response before he hangs up.

“Hi,” Blaine says again, looking nervous now.

“Hi,” Kurt says, and then, because he doesn’t know what else there is to do, waves him inside. “Um. Come in?”

“Thanks.” Blaine waits until Kurt has stepped back from the open door to enter.

“What - what are you doing here?” Kurt asks, feeling like his voice is coming from very far away.

“I came to see Quinn,” Blaine says quickly, like it’s an excuse he’s clinging to. “Our semester ends earlier and I flew out to Connecticut. We came to the city for the weekend. She has friends here.”

That’s an entirely reasonable reason. “Where’s Quinn?”

“She met some friends of hers for the morning. I - came here.”

Yes, that much is obvious, Kurt thinks, but doesn’t say. “Oh.”

“I want us to be friends again,” Blaine says.

“I have to go to class,” Kurt says, because he does.

They stand there, just blinking at one another, for another moment, before Kurt takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll take you to Rachel’s.”

72.  
The first few hundred yards down the block are exquisitely awkward; neither of them know what to say, and Kurt just wants to get to Rachel’s building, drop him off, and spend the rest of the day holed up in his classroom.

Then, as they turn the corner onto the street, the awkwardness gets even worse. Kurt sees Jack before he sees them, which gives him half a second to brace himself before Jace waves his hand in a wave, a smile lighting his face. “Hi Kurt! Hi - oh. Hi Blaine,” his smile falters, and his eyes flick between their faces, confused.

“Blaine’s here with Quinn for the day,” Kurt explains, and sees Jack relax a little. “I’m just walking him to Rachel’s now.”

“Oh! Sounds good. Look, I’ve got to run, but I’ll see you for lunch?” When he nods, Jack darts in to kiss him quickly. “Love you, Kurt!”

Kurt’s face flames. Next to him, Blaine goes still. Awkward is not going to even begin to describe what’s going to happen in the next five seconds, but Blaine came here, and he can damn well deal with the consequences. Kurt is not going to lie to spare his feelings.

“Love you too,” he smiles at Jack, hopes it doesn’t look as pained as it feels, and keeps walking toward Rachel’s apartment.

73.  
“Kurt, hi!” Rachel smiles brightly as she opens her apartment door. “Blaine. ...hi.” Her smile turns uncertain as she sees him standing there,and the look she gives Kurt is full of questions. “Good to see you,” she says uncertainly.

“Blaine’s in town with Quinn, but she’s with friends and I have to go to class. Can you take Blaine?” Kurt asks, as if Blaine isn’t capable of telling his own story, or, for that matter, entertaining himself in the city for a morning.

One of the things that Kurt loves about Rachel, no matter how truly obnoxious she can be, is how she takes it as a personal challenge to rise to any and every occasion thrown at her. “Of course,” she says, straightening, and puts on a hundred-watt smile she turns on Blaine. “Have a good class. I’m sure Blaine and I will have _lots_ to talk about.”

“Thanks. See you later,” he says, mostly to Rachel, vaguely to Blaine. And then he turns around and gets out of there.

74.  
Kurt sits in the back of the classroom, back in the corner where he doesn’t have to make eye contact with anyone or even keep his head up. He leans his hand on his fist and tries to concentrate on his professor but it’s no good; today is just going to be a wash.

Kurt’s not _conflicted_ over Blaine’s sudden appearance; that’s not it. He’s his ex; Kurt is with Jack now, these are facts and Kurt is aware of them and Blaine suddenly being in New York does not change those facts, or Kurt’s feelings about them. It is sudden, though, and unexpected, and Kurt doesn’t know how he feels about it or how he’s supposed to feel about it, and he definitely doesn’t know what to do about it.

So he doodles in his notebook, and wills the clock to move faster, and doesn’t for a moment wish it wouldn’t stop altogether.

75.  
When Kurt gets to the cafeteria Jack is already at their usual table, and his smile when he sees Kurt approach is tinged with concern.

“Hey,” he says, as Kurt sets down his tray and hangs his coat over the back of his chair. “Is everything alright?”

“Of course,” Kurt says brightly, sitting down and picking up his fork.

Jack gives him a look that is thoroughly unimpressed. “Kurt.”

“What? What do you want me to say? Yes, Blaine is here, yes, it’s weird, but - we said we’d be friends. Friends visit friends, right?” Kurt stabs a piece of pasta and puts it in his mouth.

“Yeah, but you and he aren’t friends anymore. Kurt.” Jack puts a hand on his arm. “Do you need me to talk to him?”

The offered threat he’s so vaguely implying makes Kurt laugh, and he covers his mouth as the laugh turns into a cough.

Jack looks affronted. “What? I mean it!”

Kurt swallows and smiles at him. “I know you do. And I appreciate it, really. But it’s fine, honestly.”

“Alright.” Jack still looks doubtful, so Kurt drops his fork and covers the hand on his arm with his own.

“Really, sweetie. It’s going to be fine.”

76.  
“What are they doing here?” Kurt hisses - unkindly, he knows, but this is _his_ place - to Rachel, who swings her gaze towards the door.

“They’re probably here for karaoke,” she answers helpfully. “We come here every other Friday, Blaine knows that.”

Kurt had been looking forward to at least an evening away from his confusing thoughts, but Blaine has Quinn by the hand and is leading her towards their table with a wave and a smile, and there’s no avoiding them.

Quinn hugs him when he stands up to say hi, and asks for a duet, so a quarter of an hour later he’s on stage with her, resentment masked, at least for the moment, in the fun of performing. College has changed Quinn, and for the better; she’s looser, easier in herself, and Kurt thinks the streak of blue at her temple suits her better than her dainty sundresses ever did. Her voice is stronger, too, and even lovelier than in high school, and they finish to whoops from their table.

Blaine and Rachel are next, and then Blaine and Quinn take a turn, and as the night goes on Kurt relaxes into Jack’s side and decides that maybe he can just enjoy this. Blaine doesn’t pay any more attention to Kurt than he does to the rest of their friends, doesn’t glare daggers his way either or cause a scene or anything else Kurt had been afraid of when he’d first walked in. It’s actually just - kind of fun.

77.  
“How’s Yale?” Kurt asks, sliding into the booth next to Quinn.

Quinn turns a bright smile on him from where she’s been watching Alex and Rachel have a heated debate over the merits of Rogers and Hammerstein versus Sondheim (not that Alex, a biology major, cares at all, but Rachel-baiting is one of her favorite sports). “It’s really great,” she says. “I wasn’t sure if I’d like being so far from home, but it’s really incredible. Is New York still everything you thought it would be?”

“Mostly,” Kurt gives a self-deprecating smile. “It’s going to be at least a few more months before I can bend the dean of the performing arts department to my will.”

“Sounds like you’re settling in well, then.”

“Mmm.” Behind her, Blaine is leaning down over where the girls are arguing to interject some point that makes Alex beam and Rachel puff up with indignation. Quinn turns her head to follow his gaze.

“I had to talk him into coming, you know,” she says after a moment.

“Mm?”

“Blaine. I don’t know what the deal is between you two, or anything, but - he’s not intruding,” she says carefully. “I mean, he might be, but it’s not what he meant to do. He’s been planning on coming out and spending time in Connecticut since the summer, but it took forever to talk him into coming down to the city with me. I told him he was being a stupid boy and packed his bag for him.” She smiles, and Kurt wishes that he’d been closer to Quinn in high school; there’s something eerily familiar in the determination in the set of her mouth, the pride of accomplishment in her eyes.

“Well. Thanks.” he says, and is surprised to find that he actually means it.

78.  
Later that night, when Jack has gone home and Kurt, Quinn, and Blaine have somehow ended up back at Rachel’s apartment, Blaine finally corners him. Rachel and Quinn are having some shrieky-giggly conversation in the corner of the living room, and really, who would have thought that they would turn out to be such good friends?

When Kurt goes into the kitchen to refill his water glass, Blaine follows him. Kurt knows he’s there, even if he can’t hear his socked feet on the tiles, and when he stands up from pulling the pitcher out of the refrigerator he takes a breath and turns to face him.

“Blaine -”

“Kurt -”

They both stop, awkwardly, but Kurt plows on ahead first. “Look, Blaine.” He shuts the fridge door and sets the pitcher on the counter. “I’m still not really sure why you’re here, but I do _not_ want any serious conversations, okay? No heart-to-hearts, nothing soul-searching or whatever, okay?”

“Okay,” Blaine agrees easily, leaning a hip against the counter. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow at him; Blaine nods towards the living room as a burst of giggles erupts. “I’m not going back in there. There’s girl chats, and then there’s girl chats, you know?”

Despite himself, Kurt huffs a laugh as he returns the pitcher to the fridge. “Yeah, I hear you.” He takes a sip of water and regards Blaine over the edge of his glass. There’s nothing in his posture except easy open friendliness, and his head is tipped to the side as if he really is interested in whatever Kurt is going to say. Kurt takes another gulp of water and sets the glass on the counter. “Okay, then. Seen the new Vogue?” he asks, and when Blaine grins, he smiles back.

79.  
To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _What time do you guys have to leave?_

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _Not until two on Sunday. Why?_

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _Jack and I are finally going to take advantage of the student discount at MoMA, if you two would like to come._

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _I’d love to, but Rach and I already have plans. I’ll see if Blaine’s up for it, though._

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _Thanks_

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _Unless that’s a bad idea...?_

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _No! It’s fine. Really. That wasn’t sarcasm._

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _Alright, Blaine is a go. A very enthusiastic go, you may need a leash if you don’t want to lose him._

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _Wonderful. Tell him to meet us at the coffeeshop at 11 tomorrow._

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _Which coffeeshop?_

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _*The* coffeeshop. He’ll know._

To: Kurt  
From: Quinn  
 _Okay, done being your carrier pigeon now._

To: Quinn  
From: Kurt  
 _You’re an angel._

The afternoon, on the whole, goes far less badly than Kurt had feared. Blaine is nothing less than polite and friendly and interested in the museum - about which he is exceedingly enthusiastic. It’s even fun, wandering the displays with someone who doesn’t mind spending an hour in the travelling textiles exhibit. Jack is not the type to be jealous, but he is the type to give a hard time to anyone he thinks is giving Kurt a hard time, and he’s mostly on his best behaviour. He gets in a few barbs, mostly when he thinks Kurt is out of earshot. Kurt braces for impact, but Blaine just smiles and steers the conversation to something else..

Maybe, he thinks, watching Blaine and Jack bend their heads together over a modern art display Kurt just does not get, this friends thing could actually work.

80.  
“Hi, Kurt!” Quinn looks up from her bagel and coffee, and Blaine, sitting across from her, turns around to look at him. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I wanted to make sure I got to say goodbye before you left. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” Quinn smiles, and Blaine moves his duffel bag off the seat next to him so he can sit down.

“Blaine,” Kurt asks, a few minutes later, when Quinn has left to fetch more sugar, or something, “Can I get your number?”

Blaine raises an eyebrow as he finishes chewing a bite of muffin and swallows, glancing over to where Quinn is waiting - mostly patiently - in line behind a five-year-old who is very seriously “helping” her mother flavor her coffee. “I didn’t realize that was such a clandestine request.”

Kurt huffs, but Blaine grins, and Kurt holds out a hand. “Phone.”

Blaine’s grin grows, and he fishes his phone out of his jacket pocket and hands it to Kurt. “Careful now, Mr. Bond, that’s proprietary technology there.”

“Oh, shut up.” Kurt dials his own number and waits until he hears the buzz of his phone in his own pocket, and hands it back. “There.”

“Thanks,” Blaine smiles, looking like it’s Kurt who’s done him the favor, and repockets the phone just as Quinn comes back.

“What are you looking so smug about?” she asks, bumping Blaine’s shoulder as she sits down. Kurt makes the mistake of catching Blaine’s eye, and they both start laughing.

Quinn rolls her eyes and reaches across the table to smack Kurt on the arm. “Boys!”

**One of Them (Reprise)**

81.  
“Well, I did it.” Kurt drops his bag by the table and flops next to Rachel on her couch.

Rachel looks up at him over the edge of her textbook. “Got all the paperwork in?”

“Signed, sealed, and delivered. I am officially no longer a performing arts major.”

“Not something I had ever thought I would say congratulations for, but, congratulations, Kurt.” Rachel closes her book and lets it fall onto her chest.

“Yeah.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know. Normal? I mean, I’ve been thinking about this for ages. And there’s nothing that says I can’t ever change back if I want to, but...”

“It’s a big step.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Kurt Hummel, now-a-fashion-design-major,” Rachel stands up from the couch and tugs him with her. “Let’s go celebrate.”

82.  
“Congratulations, kiddo.” His dad pulls him into a tight hug that knocks his cap askew.

“Thanks, Dad,” Kurt says into his chest, and clings tight. Rachel is there next to him, beaming and clapping, and Jack is there in his own cap and gown, and behind him is Blaine, with hugs for both of them.

They go out to dinner, the five of them, and it feels like victory in a way his graduation from McKinley never had, like he’s really achieved something, now.

Late that night, after Burt has gone back to the hotel, they stay up way too late in Kurt’s apartment, celebrating with James and Alex. Blaine finds Kurt out on the fire escape when he goes out for air, way into the small hours of the morning.

“You’re one of the stars, now,” Blaine tells him sweeping his hand out at the glitter of lights beneath and beyond them, and Kurt is so happy he cries.

83.  
Jack is asleep in their bed when Kurt untangles himself from the covers and quietly makes his way out of the room, to his desk in their tiny living room. Nothing has turned him into a night owl so much as working a full-time job, and it’s annoying, because he never feels like he gets enough sleep. He loves it though, and hums to himself as he flicks on the light over his drafting table and flips open a sketchbook.

“Kurt?” Kurt’s not sure how long he’s been up when he looks up to see Jack, wrapped in a bathrobe and standing in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”

Kurt looks down at the almost-finished sketch. “Everything’s perfect,” he says.

“You wanna come to bed, sweetie?”

Kurt does; he’s tired, now, and soft sheets and a warm body are exactly what he wants to curl up in, but.

“I’m almost done - I’ll be in in a minute.”

“‘lright,” Jack yawns. “Love you.”

“Love you too, honey,” Kurt says, as Jack shuffles back to their room.

84.  
“Could you have possibly come up with a more cliched graduation party idea?” Kurt asks, propping his sunglasses up on his head and looking up to where Blaine is trying to work a streak of barbecue sauce off of his t-shirt.

“What? We’re in California, Kurt. It would be criminal not to take advantage of the beach.”

Kurt hums and falls back on his elbows, looking out at the great expanse of ocean, turning orange and gold now in the sunset light. “It is beautiful,” he admits.

Blaine finally seems to give his shirt up as a lost cause and strips it off, and flops down in the sand next to Kurt. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Mmm. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Kurt drops down onto his back and looks up at the huge bowl of the sky, blue and white and gold with clouds and sunset. “I really do see why you love it here.”

Blaine stretches an arm back over his head, and his fingers catch leather at Kurt’s wrist; the watch Jack gave him for Christmas last year. His thumb brushes skin as he tugs on it gently. “And what about you?”

“Hmm?” Kurt turns his head to see Blaine watching him intently.

“Do you love it here?”

Kurt considers that a moment, thinks of the great expanse of the water and the vibrant city hidden just beyond the dunes and the hills, thinks of all he has waiting for him back in New York.

“I think I could. Someday,” he says.

Blaine nods. “I thought you might.” Across the sand his friends and classmates are playing music, and volleyball, but the great expanse of beach swallows up the sound so that here, it’s quiet, and they are quiet, as they watch the sunset together.

85.  
Kurt sighs in frustration as he unslings his bag and unlocks the door. Jack looks up from the kitchen table with a “Hey, sweetheart!” but his smile falters when he sees the look on Kurt’s face. “Kurt? What’s wrong?”

Kurt drops his bag and leans back against the counter. “Nothing. I don’t know. Everything.”

Jack flips his book closed and comes to stand in front of him, taking his hands. “Is it the job? Do I have to beat someone up?” he asks solemnly, and Kurt ducks his head and laughs.

“No, nothing like that. I love the job. I do. But...”

“But what?”

“But I thought it would feel - different. I love work. I love when I’m there. I love working on my projects here. But - everything in between -”

“You knew the rest of life wasn’t going to be glamorous, no matter how prestigious a starting-level job you got,” Jack squeezed his hands and Kurt sighs.

“No, I know. It’s not that. It’s just -”

He’s not sure what it is; an inkling in the back of his mind without shape, a vague sense of discontent, some of the glow taken off life in the city. No - not the city. He still loves New York. Some of the glow just taken off of life.

Jack squeezed his hands again, looking earnest but helpless, and kisses his cheek. “Come on, Mr. Existential. Let’s get dinner going before I need to break out the supersoaker.”

Kurt laughs at that, and lets Jack take his jacket off and hang it up before they pull open the refrigerator to see what they have to work with.

86.  
“Hey, honey, can you help me with this?” Kurt calls into the living room, and Jack looks up from the TV he’d been staring at, curled up in the corner of the couch, relief in his eyes.

“Sure, be right there.”

The cranberry sauce doesn’t really need two people, but Kurt has been getting _save me_ vibes from Jack all morning, and finally decided to take pity on him. Kurt can’t imagine what’s gone wrong, doesn’t think anything has gone wrong, exactly, but there’s something sitting in the air, something not quite right.

“Looks delicious, boys,” Burt says, passing through the kitchen on his way to the basement for something, and the oddness is there, too, something artificial where Kurt is used to everything being real, and warm.

There’s something missing, as they all sit down to dinner, something that’s a little harder than Kurt wishes it were in the conversation and the banter. It’s not coldness, it’s not hostility, not from his dad or from Carole, who have never been anything but welcoming and kind towards Jack. It’s just something... missing, and it’s driving Kurt crazy.

87.  
“Kurt, do you have any idea what time - oh.” Rachel cuts her rant short as she pulls open the door fully to see Kurt there, leaning against the doorframe, a paper bag clutched in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

Kurt walks in, trying not to look directly at her. “I brought alcohol,” he says, handing her the bag, and Rachel’s face falls farther into confusion as she takes it.

“What happened?”

“I broke up with him.” Kurt toes off his shoes, tosses his jacket over a chair, and reaches for the top shelf where Rachel keeps her glasses. “And tonight I am going to get drunk, and you are going to help me, because you are my best friend.”

“Oh, Kurt.” Rachel follows him into the living room, carrying the bottle in one hand. “Are you okay?”

Kurt scowls at her from the sofa. ”I’m fine. He’s fine. It’s fine. It’s all peachy. It’s over.”

“Kurt.”

“What, Rachel?”

“You guys have been... were... together a long time. Don’t you want to talk about it?”

Kurt shrugs his shoulders back into the couch, and his voice sounds clipped and foreign in his own ears. “I don’t know. It wasn’t right. I don’t know why. He asked and I could tell him. What’s there to talk about? It’s over now.”

Rachel sits down next to him and tucks her legs up underneath herself. “Do you need a place to stay?”

Kurt gestures at the couch. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you know what I mean. Logistics in the morning. Alcohol tonight, or I’m going to cry all over your new pajamas, and lovely as pink is on you I don’t think either of us want that. Come on.” He takes the bottle from Rachel, unscrews the top, and pours out two glasses. “To freedom!” His hand is shaking.

Rachel takes hers with a tentative smile that makes Kurt grin. “To freedom!” she echoes, and they manage not to spill any when the clink their glasses together.

88.  
“See, I thought you were kidding,” Blaine says, pulling his gloves off as he approaches Kurt at the table, smiling. “‘Meet me for lunch at the Wharf.’ Sure. Yeah. Totally, Mr. I’m-usually-in-Eastern-Standard-Time.”

“You came,” Kurt points out, and stands to hug Blaine, who squeezes him tightly before they sit back down.

“So what does bring you to our fair city? Finally get sick of the blizzards and ice storms?”

“No, I _love_ losing power for a week, what do you mean?” Kurt grins, and Blaine smiles back. “I’m here for work, actually, they sent me out for a couple days to do some meetings.”

“Really? Wow, that sounds like a big deal.”

Kurt shrugs, pleased. “It is, a little, I guess. And I wanted to make sure I saw you before I left.”

“Well, here I am.” A waitress appears to take their drink orders, and when she’s gone again Kurt leans his hand on his head and just watches Blaine, who looks curiously back.

“How’ve you been?” he finally asks, when Kurt doesn’t say anything for a long minute.

Kurt flexes his fingers and thinks about his answer. “I don’t think I realized til this last week how much there was in San Francisco,” he begins. “I mean, I knew there’s a great music scene, of course, if you love it here, but there’s a... culture. It’s not as full of itself as L.A. or New York is.”

Blaine takes a sip of his water and grins. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, now I know what you were talking about.”

“Better late than never. So.” Blaine puts down his glass and folds his arms on the table. “How much trouble do we have time to get in before you have to fly back?”

89.  
Rachel finds him stretched out on the couch when she comes in from a late rehearsal, his laptop open, maps and computer print-outs scattered amongst the cushions and strewn across the coffee table.

“Hi, Kurt,” she says softly as she perches on the arm of the couch, careful not to disturb his piles.

“Hey, Rachel. How was rehearsal?”

“It was good,” she says, and reaches across him to pick up two of the print-outs, each highlighted across the top, notes scrawled and underlined in the margins. “You got the offer, then?”

Kurt nods, and Rachel beams and pulls him in for a hug. “That’s wonderful! Oh, Kurt, I’m so proud of you.”

He smiles, and pats her arm. “I got both offers, actually,” he says, shifting and handing her another piece of paper that had been tucked almost underneath his computer. She takes it, and her smile turns thoughtful as she reads it, and then a little sad. She turns the paper over in her hands, scanning the notes Kurt has written on it, then looks at the maps Kurt has spread out, and really seems to take them in for the first time.

“Oh, Kurt,” she says, and Kurt knows that tone in her voice, has been feeling that emotion for the last day, the bittersweet joy since he’d opened his email that morning.

“Yeah,” he says.

Rachel hands the paper back to him carefully. “You’re going to go, aren’t you,” she asks, and Kurt hesitates, but nods.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure before, but - yes.”

Rachel slides off the arm of the couch, into the little space between it and Kurt, and wraps his arm around herself. “I’m going to miss you.”

Kurt squeezes her shoulders and lets his cheek fall onto her head. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

90.  
Spring is coming. Kurt can feel it, even if the trees in the park are bare and the grass is still brown and laced with slush under his feet. Nights are still icy and mornings are still chill, but there’s an energy that Kurt can feel under his skin, a promise that the world is waking again.

Kurt will miss this, he knows, walking familiar paths and familiar streets, passing familiar buildings in the city he dreamed of conquering, and has conquered. He’ll miss it terribly, and he will always, he knows, wonder what he gave up to make this move. But he’s okay with that, okay with taking chances. There will always be a what if, always be something he’ll wonder about, and he accepts that, now.

Snowmelt is trickling across the lawn, turning the grass into a tiny running swamp. He could stay in New York, and happily, but he doesn’t need to, not like he used to, and now, now that he doesn’t _need_ to, he very much wants to see what the rest of the world holds for him.

 

**Welcome Home**

91.  
Kurt settles into the seat and looks out the little window at the salt-streaked runway. There’s nothing like a late-spring snow to send him off, but Kurt’s just glad his flight hasn’t been delayed by the snow.

As the flight attendant runs through the safety check, Kurt flips on his phone for one last text message.

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _When’s a good time to call? I have something I need to tell you._

After a moment, he types another text, because Blaine has a paranoid streak.

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Don’t worry, it’s good news. I hope._

It’s not a direct flight; he’ll be in O’Hare for a few hours, and it’ll be late tonight even by West Coast time before he touches down in California, but as the engines whir to life and the plane backs away from the terminal, Kurt feels like he’s far on his way already.

92.  
Kurt’s waiting at baggage claim, setting his watch to the time on his phone when the latter buzzes in his hand.

“Hello?”

_“Kurt! Hi. Is everything okay?”_ Kurt smiles at the voice in his ear, low and concerned, and pins his phone between his shoulder and ear so he can fasten the watch back on.

“I told you it was good news, stop worrying.”

_“Yeah, but I tried to call hours ago and you never picked up -”_

“I’m in California, Blaine,” Kurt says, eyes on the conveyer belt of the baggage claim. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, so suddenly, had had a whole speech planned, but he hadn’t planned on Blaine calling, and...

There’s a pause. _“Oh. Work again?”_

“No. Well, yes, But...no.”

_“Then...what. Kurt?”_ Blaine really does sound worried now, and Kurt takes a deep breath as the light flashes and the conveyer belt starts moving.

“No, I’m moving here. ...Moved here. I’m living here now. In San Francisco.”

An even longer pause. _“Oh. Wow.”_ Blaine sounds stunned; Kurt can’t really blame him. _“That’s...huge, Kurt. Congratulations. Wow.”_

“Thanks.” Kurt ducks his head, even though Blaine isn’t there to see him.

_“So, um, when did you move in? When you’re settled we should get dinner or something, to celebrate.”_

“Uh, today. I’m at the airport, actually. Um. My flight just got in.” He can see his bag on the belt now, and elbows his way past a gaggle of teenagers - some high school sports team, all with too-loud voices and matching jackets.

_“Oh, wow, you_ just _moved here.”_ Another pause, and Kurt grabs the handle and hauls it off the belt, letting it drop to the floor probably a little less gently than he should. _“Do you need - help? A ride, or, anything?”_

Kurt thinks of the hassle of public transportation and taxis, the long drive alone to an apartment he hasn’t seen yet, unpacking the essentials out of his too-few suitcases in the dark. “No, it’s fine, god, Blaine, you’re busy, I can’t -”

_“Kurt, it’s no -”_

“No, really, Blaine, it’s fine - ”Kurt breaks off to swear as his bag tips over as he rolls it away from the baggage claim.

“Kurt,” Blaine says firmly. _“It’s eleven o’clock at night, you flew across the country today, you have to be exhausted, and you hate taxis. What terminal are you at?”_ There’s a rustle over the line, like Blaine is reaching for a jacket, and a clink like keys.

“Are you sure...?”

_“Kurt.”_ Blaine’s voice is fondly exasperated. _“If you don’t tell me I’m just going to check all the flights from New York and meet you there anyway. Now come on, the faster you tell me, the faster I can come rescue you from the terror that is evening in San Francisco.”_

Kurt finds himself next to a pillar, and lets himself lean against it in relief. “Five A.”

_“Hang tight. I’ll be at Curbside in forty-five minutes.”_

“ _Thank you._ ”

_“It’s really no problem. And Kurt?”_

“Yeah?”

The warmth is Blaine’s voice is palpable. _“Welcome home.”_

93.  
Kurt has more space here, than in New York; can’t get over the fact that, even after the rest of his wardrobe and the belongings he cared enough about to ship from home arrive he still has room in his cupboards and closets. And he can _decorate._

“Love what you’ve done with the place.” Kurt turns gingerly around on the step stool he’s perched on top of, to see Blaine leaning with his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe of the living room.

“I didn’t hear you come in, sorry,” Kurt climbs down carefully, tugging a drop cloth back into place from where the ladder has dragged it askew.

“No problem. Here’s your spare back, by the way.” Blaine sets Kurt’s extra key down on a curbside-rescue end table that’s been dragged away from the wall. “What’s on the agenda for the day?”

“Well,” Kurt reaches for another roll of painter’s table from the collection on the newspaper-covered table. “If you brought painting clothes, painting. If not, then you can try to help fix the projector so we can trace the stupid design and be done with the accent wall.”

“I thought you loved the accent wall.” Blaine crouches down by the reluctant projector, and flips the cover up and off.

“I do love the accent wall. And I will love it even more once it is done and I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Blaine gives the lightbulb inside an experimental twist, then pulls it out and shakes it next to his ear. “I thought you liked the color in here. Besides, if it’s stressing you out, you don’t have to do anything with it. And even if you do want to spruce it up, there’s no rush for time. Bulb’s burnt out.” He tips the bulb forward and squints to read the top of it.

“I know, but I _want_ to.” Kurt sits down on the stepstool and crosses his legs. “I love this apartment. I love this city. And I want to make this little part of it mine.”

“And that involves geometrically-patterned accent walls?” Blaine props his arm on his bent leg and grins up at him.

“I’m so glad you understand. Now, come on, help me claim my part of San Francisco.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Blaine takes Kurt’s offered hand and pulls himself to his feet. “What color do we get to do today?”

94.  
Kurt looks at the spread of material fanned out around him and sighs. These alterations are going to take even longer than he had planned, and he tries to ignore that it’s because he forgot to double-check the measurements. The light in this studio is good, far better than it had been in his basement costume room at school, with morning sunlight glinting in from big bay windows, but the change of the light - from the grey early this morning, to silver and then gold as the sun rose and the fog started to burn off - just serves to remind him how much time has passed, and how little he’s gotten done. Kurt glances at the clock on the wall, and then fishes around in his pile of notes for his phone.

From: Kurt  
To: Blaine  
 _Swamped (literally, in taffeta) at work. Okay if we cancel brunch this week? I’m really sorry._

Kurt swaps out a bobbin, and when he snaps the treadle foot back into place his phone buzzes with an incoming message.

From: Blaine  
To: Kurt  
 _No_

Kurt frowns and kicks his chair back from the sewing machine.

From: Kurt  
To: Blaine  
 _Excuse me?_

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _You heard me, Kurt :) I know what you have to get done, and when you have to get it done by, and you have time to meet me for an hour :)_

Kurt rolls his eyes. Blaine’s insistence that he take breaks is sweet, but Blaine has to be as busy as he is this weekend, and the extra time won’t hurt either of them.

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Very nice, but I’ve managed to double my own workload. Actually swamped._

The reply comes immediately.

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _The work will still be there in an hour. After you have brunch._

Kurt huffs a breath out and replies one-handed as he fishes for his pincushion one-handed.

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Really not taking no for an answer this morning, are you?_

This time a few minutes pass before a reply, long enough for Kurt to start worrying that he’s overstepped. He manages to lose and find his seamripper twice before his phone lights up again.

To: Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _I’m not letting you get away from me again, Kurt._

Kurt stares down at the phone in his hand, and, well, if that isn’t something to think about this morning.

To: Blaine  
From: Kurt  
 _Fine. I’ll be there._

To:Kurt  
From: Blaine  
 _I know you will._

95.  
Blaine looks up from the stove when Kurt lets himself into his apartment, and reaches out for a one-armed hug as Kurt passes. “Hey! How was your day?”

“It was great, and wow, that smells amazing. What is it?” Kurt peers over Blaine’s shoulder at the pot bubbling happily on the stove.

“I am _attempting_ to make chai hot chocolate. I have all the components, the trick - is just proportions and -” Blaine reaches for a potholder and moves the pan to a cool burner, and flicks the hot one off. “- timing. So,” he says, hanging the potholder up and dusting his hands off on his jeans. “Work?”

“Oh, Blaine, it was _amazing_.” Kurt sinks down onto a kitchen stool and crosses his knees. Blaine leans back against the stove, his hands on the handle of the oven. “The first dress rehearsal, and it just went - perfectly. Everyone was so happy with their costumes -”

“Even Emilia?” Blaine asks, grinning, and Kurt smiles.

“Even Emilia. Everything just came together. And then for lunch the crew and I went out to that new place down by the theater, and - I really feel like part of the group now, you know? And the sunset, coming over here tonight - did you get to see it?” Kurt looks up to see Blaine’s smile softening.

“I did.”

“Just - the light over the water - and the bridge - it’s _incredible_ Blaine, one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and I get to _live_ here now.” Kurt leans an elbow on the counter to prop his chin on his hand. Blaine just keeps looking at him, that soft smile twitching his mouth. “What?”

Kurt drops his arm to the counter as Blaine steps towards him, and he realizes what’s going to happen half a second before it does. Blaine cups Kurt’s cheek in his hand, and says, “I love you, Kurt,” and leans down, and kisses him.

Kurt makes a noise, not of surprise, and then his hands are on Blaine’s shoulder, in his hair, and he’s kissing back, familiar-new press and slide, and the rush of remembering makes him tremble. Blaine pulls back, worry creasing his forehead. “Kurt, are you -? I’m sorry, I - ”

Kurt cuts him off. “I love you, too.”

Blaine’s smile is like the sun coming up, and beams brighter when Kurt stands up off the stool so he can wrap his arms around Blaine’s neck, and press him back into the counter, and kiss him until neither of them can breathe.

96.  
Blaine stops Kurt with a hand to his chest just as Kurt is leaning over him on the bed. “Are you sure?” he asks, eyes searching Kurt’s.

“So sure. Blaine.” Kurt says. “Please, Blaine let me...”

Blaine peels Kurt’s clothes off, layer by layer, setting it all aside until they’re there and bare together, sliding and pressing, friction and sparks while Kurt sinks into Blaine and their skin slaps out a rhythm, together, together, together.

97.  
It starts with a stack of apartment listings left on Blaine’s endtable.

Then there is a list of addresses on Kurt’s phone, a file of pictures on Blaine’s laptop, a map colored and highlighted that moves between apartments with them.

And then, one day, it ends with Blaine sprawling on the bare floor of _their_ new apartment, with Kurt sitting cross-legged next to him, dazedly contemplating the boxes that await them.

Kurt lifts a tired hand and strokes Blaine’s shoulder, feeling the tack and drag of sweat through his thin t-shirt. “Well. What do you think?”

Blaine rolls onto his side and reaches up to brush a hand across Kurt’s cheek. “Welcome home,” he says, and pulls Kurt down into a kiss.

98.  
“Which anniversary is it?” David asks Kurt over the hum of the crowd.

Kurt looks to Blaine for help. “Um. I don’t know. Third? Fourth? It depends if you count -” he tries to tick the years off on his fingers, but the lights are bright and the bass is thrumming, and he’s having trouble.

“No, man,” David shakes his head. “ _Which_ anniversary? First kiss? Dalton boyfriends? California boyfriends?”

Kurt flushes, and Blaine laughs around the lip of his beer bottle at him. Kurt smacks his arm, and then folds his, because they’d had to pick _a_ day as an anniversary, but the one Blaine had finally insisted on was - well, it was sweet, Kurt knew, but it was also kind of ridiculous, and he’s embarrassed to share.

“It’s okay man,” David says, patting him on the shoulder as he stands up. “We’ve got you covered either way. Blaine, you ready?”

Blaine kisses Kurt’s cheek as he stands to follow David, and Kurt settles back happily to watch them make their way to the stage. It’s difficult to believe it was ever hard to drag Blaine to an evening out, but he fits in so well here, so much better than he ever did in New York, and Kurt is happy to spend a lifetime watching him.

“So, tonight is the very special anniversary of my two very special friends,” David says, hopping up on the stage and passing another microphone to Blaine. “And, in honor of that milestone, we have prepared a very special performance for the better half of them. Ready?”

He tips his head to look at Blaine, who just looks at Kurt and fucking _winks_.

Kurt knows within the first two beats of the backing chords what song they’re going to sing, can feel his face flame by the second bar. It’s ridiculous, it’s utterly ridiculous, and he sits back in his chair and covers his face with his hands and tries to hide.

Two Warblers does not a choir make, but David is backing Blaine up gamely, and it’s no good. The beat is as infectious as ever, and he has a ridiculous, _ridiculous_ boyfriend singing to him up on the stage, face shining bright and open just like it had that day on the stairs so many years ago.

He knows he’s laughing, and then he knows he’s crying, when the tears slip warm and welcome between his fingers. Kurt puts a hand over his heart, and as Blaine finds his eyes again after a spin mouths _I love you_ and thrills to his toes when Blaine’s smile glows even wider.

_You and I, we’ll be young forever._

99.  
Kurt wakes in a warm haze, and is about to drift back down into the enveloping darkness when Blaine’s arm tightens around his waist, and his nose bushes the back of Kurt’s neck, tickling with his curls.

“I’m going to miss you,” Blaine says, barely a whisper, but Kurt can feel his breath gust warm on his skin.

“It’s just for a couple of weeks.” Kurt reaches back over his shoulder to brush some of Blaine’s hair off his skin, where it’s prickling.

“I know. Still going to miss you.”

Kurt’s hand brushes across Blaine’s cheek, and comes away damp. “Blaine?”

Blaine doesn’t respond, other than pulling his arms tighter around Kurt’s waist. Kurt has to struggle to turn himself around, and when he does, Blaine’s eyes are screwed shut tight, his eyelashes dark and wet. “Blaine? Blaine, baby, what’s wrong?” Kurt presses his palm to Blaine’s flushed face.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“But - why?” Kurt traces his fingertips across Blaine’s forehead. “We’ve been apart this long before. Sweetheart,” he says, tipping Blaine’s chin up until his eyes flutter open. “What is it?”

Blaine sniffles, and takes a breath, and chokes out a watery laugh. “It’s stupid, I know. I’m just...scared. I’m afraid you’ll remember how much you loved it in New York and not want to come back here.”

“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt wraps both of his arms around Blaine and pulls him close, pressing his face into his shoulder. “I am always going to come back to you. Wherever you are.”

“Promise?” Blaine’s trying to smile, but his voice is small and tremulous. Kurt kisses his forehead.

“I promise.”

100.  
Kurt has his phone out of his pocket and turned on as soon as the seatbelt light switches off.

_Landed! Be out in ten, hopefully._

The reply comes before he has time to put it back. _Yayyyy! See you sooooon!_

Blaine is waiting in the milling crowd around arrivals, bouncing on the balls of his to see over everyone’s heads. Kurt throws up an arm and waves, and when Blaine sees him he gives an extra bounce and jogs forward to meet him.

When Kurt reaches him he wraps Kurt up in a hug, and Kurt lets his breath go and clings, just for a minute, letting the bustle and sounds of happy reunions eddy all around them.

“You came back,” Blaine breathes, as if part of him had still thought that maybe Kurt wouldn’t.

“I will _always_ come back. Always always always,” Kurt promises. And then he takes a breath, and a step back, and gets down on one knee.

It’s not like all the cliched songs and poems; the crowd doesn’t disappear, and he is acutely aware of the people around them, stopping now to look. He just doesn’t _care_. Let them look, because he can feel the linoleum hard under his knees, and where the rubber of his shoe sole is scuffing against the floor, and where Blaine’s fingers are laced through his.

“Blaine Anderson,” he starts, and hardly has to finish, because Blaine’s eyes are crinkling at the corners with the force of his smile, and his hands are shaking where they squeeze around Kurt’s. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes, oh god, Kurt. Yes.” Blaine is laughing, and crying, and Kurt feels like his heart is going to crack from happiness.

Kurt has to let go of Blaine’s hands to fish the ring out of his pocket, and when he slides it carefully on Blaine curls his fingers back around Kurt’s wrist and pulls him up into a kiss.

“Love you,” he says against Kurt’s lips, as Kurt fists a hand in his hair and holds him close. “Love you so much.”

“I love you too. So much.”

“And Kurt?”

“Yeah?”

Blaine slides his arms down and wraps them around Kurt in a fierce hug. “Welcome home.”

*


End file.
